GATEWAY SERIES -V^N 



-A^^felfi^ 




f\ f 


1 



IHLAND YOY: 






mm^^^B^smiJisssssssimi 




Class IHES^^'d 
Ronk -Xe^ 

(bpyrighlN" \ '5>\ 

COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



I. 



OF ENGLISH TEXTS 
GENERAL EDITOR 

HENRY VAN DYKE 



Addison's Sir Roger de Coverley Papers. Professor C. T. 
Winchester, Wesleyan University. 40 cents. 

Burke's Speech on Conciliation. Professor William Mac- 
Donald, Brown University. 35 cents. 

Byron, Wordsworth, Shelley, Keats, and Browning. Pro- 
fessor C. T. Copeland, Harvard University, and Henry Milner 
Rideout. 40 cents. 

Carlyle's Essay on Burns. Professor Edwin Mims, Trinity Col- 
lege, North Carolina. 35 cents. 

Coleridge's The Ancient Mariner. Professor George E. Wood- 
berry, Columbia University. 30 cents. 

Emerson's Essays. Henry van Dyke. 35 cents. 

Franklin's Autobiography. Professor Albert Henry Smyth, Cen- 
tral High School, Philadelphia. 40 cents. 

Gaskell'S Cranford. Professor Charles E. Rhodes, Lafayette High 
School, Buffalo. 40 cents. 

George Eliot's Silas Marner. Professor W. L. Cross, Yale 
University. 40 cents. 

Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield and Deserted Village. Pro- 
fessor James A. Tufts, Phillips Exeter Academy. 45 cents. 

Irving's Sketch-Book. Professor Martin W. Sampson, Cornell 
University. 45 cents. 

Lamb's Essays of Elia. Professor John F. Genung, Amherst 
College. 40 cents. 

Macaulay's Addison. Professor Charles F. McClumpha, University 
of Minnesota. 35 cents. 



Gateway Series 



Macaulay's Life of Johnson. Professor J. S. Clark, Northwestern 
University. 35 cents. 

Macaulay's Addison and Johnson. In one volume. (McClumpha 
and Clark.) 45 cents. 

Macaulay's Milton. Rev. E. L. Gulick, Lav^'renceville School. 
35 cents. 

Milton's Minor Poems. Professor Mary A. Jordan, Smith College. 
35 cents. 

Scott's Ivanhoe. Professor Francis H. Stoddard, New York Uni- 
versity. 50 cents. 

Scott's Lady of the Lake. Professor R. M. Alden, Leland Stan- 
ford Jr. University. 40 cents. 

Shakespeare's As You Like It. Professor Isaac N. Demmon, 
University of Michigan. 35 cents. 

Shakespeare's Julius C^Sar. Dr. Hamilton W. Mabie, " The 
Outlook." 35 cents. 

Shakespeare's Macbeth. Professor T. M. Parrott, Princeton Uni- 
versity. 40 cents. 

Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice. Professor Felix E. Schel- 
ling, University of Pennsylvania. 35 cents. 

Stevenson's Inland Voyage and Travels with a Donkey. 
Professor Gilbert S. Blakely, Morris High School, New York. 

Tennyson's Gareth and Lynette, Lancelot and Elaine, and 
The Passing of Arthur. Henry van Dyke. 35 cents. 

Tennyson's Princess. Professor Katharine Lee Bates, Wellesley 
College. 40 cents. 

Washington's Farewell Address and Webster's First Bunker 
Hill Oration. Frank W. Pine, The Hill School, Pottstown, Pa. 




|WUvt>tavLo CTHK^u2i.u^^^ 



GATEWAY SERIES 



AN INLAND VOYAGE 

AND 

TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 



BY 



ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 

EDITED BY 

GILBERT SYKES BLAKELY 

DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH, MORRIS HIGH SCHOOL 
NEW YORK CITY 




NEW YORK .:• CINCINNATI •:• CHICAGO 

AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY 






Copyright, 1911, by 
AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY. 

Entered at Stationers' Hall, London. 



Stevenson's inland voyage, etc. 
W. P. I 



^ 
a 



fe^ 



CI.A28r)339 



GENERAL EDITOR'S NOTE 

This series of books aims, first, to give the English texts 
required for entrance to college in a form which shall make 
them clear, interesting, and helpful to those who are beginning 
the study of literature ; and, second, to supply the knowledge 
which the student needs to pass the entrance examination. 
For these two reasons it is called The Gateway Series. 

The poems, plays, essays, and stories in these small vol- 
umes are treated, first of all, as works of literature, which were 
written to be read and enjoyed, not to be parsed and scanned 
and pulled to pieces. A short life of the author is given, and 
a portrait, in order to help the student to know the real person 
who wrote the book. The introduction tells what it is about, 
and how it was written, and where the author got the idea, 
and what it means. The notes at the foot of the page are 
simply to give the sense of the hard words so that the student 
can read straight on without turning to a dictionary. The 
other notes, at the end of the book, explain difficulties and 
allusions and fine points. 

The editors are chosen because of their thorough training 
and special fitness to deal with the books committed to them, 
and because they agree with this idea of what a Gateway 
Series ought to be. They express, in each- case, their own 
views of the books which they edit. SimpHcity, thorough- 
ness, shortness, and clearness, — these, we hope, will be the 

marks of the series. 

HENRY VAN DYKE. 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Introduction vii 

Map , xxi 

An Inland Voyage 

Preface to P'irst Edition . . . , . . , i 

Dedication 3 

Antwerp to Boom .....,., 5 

On the Willebroek Canal lo 

The Royal Sport Nautique 15 

At Maubeuge 21 

On the Sambre Canalized : To Quartes .... 27 

Pont-sur-Sambre : We are Pedlars ..... 33 

The Travelling Merchant 39 

On the Sambre Canalized : To Landrecies ... 44 

At Landrecies 50 

Sambre and Oise Canal : Canal-boats .... 55 

The Oise in Flood ........ 60 

Origny Sainte-Benotte : A By-day 69 

The Company at Table ...... 76 

Down the Oise : To Moy 83 

La Fere of Cursed Memory 88 

Down the Oise : Through the Golden Valley ... 95 
Noyon Cathedral . . . . . . . .97 

Down the Oise: To Compiegne 102 

At Compiegne 105 

Changed Times no 

Down the Oise : Church Interiors 116 

Precy and the Marionettes 123 

Back to the World 135 

Notes End of Volume 

vi 



INTRODUCTION 

A GREAT many American boys and girls have become 
acquainted with Robert Louis Stevenson through some 
of his dehghtful romantic stories, perhaps Treasure 
Island or Kidnapped or David Balfour} To them, as to 
many others, it is of great interest to follow the events 
of his Hfe, which was almost as romantic as his stories. 
Though his ancestors for generations had lived and died 
in Scotland, he felt in him an irresistible desire to wander, 
to see new sights, meet new people, and enjoy strange 
experiences. So, though he always loved Scotland as the 
land of his birth and childhood, he was at home in 
France, in Germany, in the United States, and in many 
of the islands of the Pacific. His grave is in the Samoan 
Islands, almost as far from his native land and the graves 
of his fathers as half the distance round the world. 

The Stevensons were a family of engineers, famous for 
long years of service in estabhshing lighthouses in Scottish 
waters. The author's grandfather won fame for himself 
and his family by constructing the Bell Rock lighthouse, 
the first lighthouse ever built on a reef below the 

^ In England this is called Catriona, and forms Part II of the 
story David Balfour^ of which Kidnapped forms Part I. 



viii Inland Voyage 

surface of the water at the lowest tide. According to 
the account given by his grandson in the unfinished 
A Family of Engineers, he was a strong, masterful man 
who in the lighthouse service was " king to his finger- 
tips." And yet in spite of his severity and rough ex- 
terior he was most kind and thoughtful, not only for his 
family, but for those in his service and for their famihes. 

Many of these traits were possessed in large measure 
by his son Thomas, the father of Robert Louis. Mr. Col- 
vin speaks of him as " a staunch friend and sagacious 
adviser, trenchant in judgement and demonstrative in 
emotion, outspoken, dogmatic — despotic, even, in little 
things, but withal essentially chivalrous and soft hearted." 
He had many disappointments that he found very hard 
to bear. Of course he was proud of the work done by 
the Stevenson family and of the name they had made. 
What could be more natural than that he should wish his 
only son to follow in his profession and maintain the 
family name and reputation ? But Robert Louis had not 
the health nor the inclination to gratify his father's ambi- 
tion. Then, too, the son differed greatly from his father 
in taste, in temperament, habits of life, and in religious 
beliefs. Relations between them were sometimes strained, 
but the father's love and good sense were strong, and so 
he was able to overlook some things and appreciate the 
traits of character, very different from his own, that in 
due time made his son so famous. It is one of the 
evidences of his greatness that this dogmatic, even des- 
potic Scotchman could accept with grace such great 



Introduction ix 

disappointments and could enter so sympathetically and 
so tenderly into his son's life. 

Stevenson's mother was Margaret Balfour, the daughter 
of a clergyman in the parish of Colinton. In tempera- 
ment she was very different from her husband, for she 
was quick, vivacious, and full of interest in whatever was 
going on about her. She steadily looked on the bright 
side of hfe, and was a charming hostess. Unfortunately 
her health was far from strong ; she suffered from chest 
and nerve troubles in early life and was often unable to 
give personal care to her son in his many sicknesses. If 
he inherited from her his constitutional weaknesses, he 
also inherited from her, vivacity, an artistic tempera- 
ment, a deep interest in many things, a power to enjoy, 
and a spirit that was strong in the midst of discourage- 
ment. 

Robert Louis Stevenson was born at 8 Howard Place, 
Edinburgh, November 13, 1850. He was a delicate 
child; but had no serious sickness until he was about 
two years old. From that time he was never very strong, 
took cold easily, and was often ill for months at a time. 
Since his mother was more or less an invalid, he was left 
to a large extent to the care of a nurse. And his nurse 
became one of the important influences in his childhood. 
Alison Cunningham, always " Cummie " to him, was the 
loyal devoted nurse from the time he was eighteen 
months old until he was too old to need her care, and re- 
mained with the family long afterward. She was a de- 
vout Scotch woman, who roused his imaginative terror 



X Inland Voyage 

with her pictures of hell, but who at other times read 
him tales that appealed strongly to his romantic nature 
and recited poetry with such dramatic effect that it made 
a great impression on him. He was thoroughly devoted 
to her and made frequent references to her both in his 
poems and in his essays. 

Handicapped as he was by fits of sickness so that 
sometimes he could not leave his room all winter, he was 
kept to a large extent from associations with other chil- 
dren and got his entertainment from books, pictures, and 
his nurse. His poem, The Land of Counterpane^ gives 
us a vivid picture of the invaUd boy. . 

" When I was sick and lay a-bed, 
I had two pillows at my head, 
And all my toys beside me lay 
To keep me happy all the day. 

•' And sometimes for an hour or so 
I watched my leaden soldiers go, 
With different uniforms and drills, 
Among the bedclothes, through the hills ; 

" And sometimes sent my ships in fleets 
All up and down among the sheets ; 
Or brought my trees and houses out 
And planted cities all about. 

" I was the giant, great and still, 
That sits upon the pillow hill, 
And sees before him, dale and plain, 
The pleasant Land of Counterpane." 



Introduction xi 

At times, however, especially in the summer, he had long 
visits at his Grandfather Balfour's in Colinton. Here he 
found other children, for it was a favourite place with his 
cousins as well as himself, and here were passed the hap- 
piest times of his childhood. The Manse, where his 
grandfather lived, was next to the churchyard ; and here 
the children, led by the imaginative Robert, looked for 
ghosts and played games of witches, ghosts, and fairies. 
It is thus easy for us to see not only the imagination that 
later gave us Treasure Island and Kidnapped, but also 
how that imagination was fostered and developed. 

As might be expected in the case of so dehcate a boy, 
his education was somewhat irregular. For two or three 
years he was a student at the Edinburgh Academy, for a 
few weeks he was at an English private school, and for 
longer or shorter times at private schools in Edinburgh. 
But these facts are comparatively unimportant, for the 
real education that he received he got not so much at the 
schools, which he very irregularly attended, as in travel 
and reading. On account of his mother's health he 
spent several winters in France and in summer made 
various excursions to different parts of Scotland. Pie 
read much from poetry and romance, from essays 
and history. To prepare him for the vocation of a 
civil engineer he was sent to Edinburgh University, where 
his work was not distinguished. What appealed to him 
he studied with good success, but much of the prescribed 
work was uninteresting and therefore unstudied. He 
says of himself that he was "an inveterate truant and 



xii Inland Voyage 

idler," and it is evident that his university work was not a 
source of gratification to his friends. At length he came 
to an understanding with his father that he should defi- 
nitely give up the idea of becoming an engineer, though 
his father insisted that he should pursue the study of law 
that he might have something more than authorship to 
fall back on for a means of livelihood. Accordingly he 
dropped engineering studies and in their place took those 
of law and was admitted to the bar in 1875. ^^ the 
door of the family home appeared the plate, Robert 
Louis Stevenson, Advocate, but he never really pursued 
the practice of law. His steadfast ambition was to be a 
man of letters. 

During the latter part of his university life he made 
frequent trips to London and the Continent, and in the 
four years that followed he repeatedly yielded to the de- 
sire to wander that seems to have been in his blood. 
During this period he made many warm friends and 
some that had a powerful effect on his life and fortunes. 
Among them were Mrs. Sitwell, who became an impor- 
tant factor in his spiritual development ; Sidney Colvin, 
his most intimate friend and literary adviser; W. E. 
Henley, his collaborator in dramas and colleague in mag- 
azine work ; Andrew Lang ; Edmund Gosse ; Leslie 
Stephen ; and Mrs. Osbourne, his future wife. He spent 
much time in France ; in Paris, of which he was very 
fond, and at Barbizon and Grez, where there were con- 
genial colonies of artists. It was during this time, too, 
that he made the two journeys of which we have an ac- 



Introduction xiii 

count in the present volume. All these years his serious 
thought was given to literature, although it was far from 
being his means of support. For that he was dependent 
on a liberal allowance from his father. The works written 
at this time comprise, besides the two included in this 
volume, The New Arabian Nights, the papers published 
later as Vii-ginibus Pueiisque, and more than twenty other 
articles published in the magazines, and later, many of 
them, included in his volumes of essays. 

The year 1879 ^narked a crisis in Stevenson's life. 
Three years before, on his return from his " inland voy- 
age," he found at Grez, where he often stayed with his 
artist friends, an American woman, Mrs. Osbourne, and 
her two young children. Her home was in California, 
but having had an unhappy married life, she sought new 
surroundings. Accordingly she had come to France, where 
she was energetically following the pursuit of painting. 
Stevenson fell in love with her, but the difficulties were 
so great that he could have nothing more than a remote 
hope of marriage. In the year 1879 she returned to 
California, and Stevenson, a few months later, determined 
to follow. His friends who knew of his plan all strongly 
advised against it. He felt so sure of the opposition of 
his parents that he did not even consult them. Although 
the income from his writing had always been very small, 
he now determined to give up the allowance that he had 
from his father and trust entirely to his literary work for 
his support. Accordingly, partly for economy and partly 
for an experience that he might turn to literary use, he 



xiv Inland Voyage 

took passage on the Devoiiia as a second-class or a thirds 
class passenger. He moved freely among the steerage 
passengers, learning what he could from them and prov- 
ing himself their sincere and helpful friend. After a few 
hours in New York he started in an emigrant train across 
the continent. His experiences he has given us in 
The Amateur Emigrant and Across the Plains. The 
strain of the journey and the hardships he suffered left 
him in an exhausted condition. To recuperate he went 
into the mountains above Monterey and camped in the 
open air. But he was near to death's door and would 
probably never have recovered had it not been for 
two goatherds, who took pity on him, removed him to 
their shelter, and cared for him until his strength re- 
turned. 

After a few weeks spent not unpleasantly in Monterey, 
he went, December, 1879, ^^ ^^^ Francisco. Here he 
struggled with poverty, with loneliness, and with ill 
health. He worked very hard, but got litde immediate 
return ; his correspondence with his parents was short 
and unsatisfactory ; and he tried to scrimp a little more, 
fearing that he should come to actual want. Worn by 
anxiety, constant work, and lack of proper food, he 
broke down in health before the end of the winter. 
Had it not been for Mrs. Osbourne, who cared for him 
until his strength returned, he would probably not 
have lived. His father, at this time learning more 
about his son's affairs, acknowledged that he had been 
labouring under a misapprehension, and telegraphed him 



• Introduction xv 

that he might count on the old allowance of ;£2 5o a 
year. In May he was married to Mrs. Osbourne and 
went up into the hills to a deserted mining camp, where 
they roughed it for some weeks and where in spite of 
some hardships his health grew stronger. The story of 
life in this mining camp is found in The Silverado 
Squatters. In the summer he learned that his father 
and mother were both anxious to have him return 
and bring his wife. So, in August, he sailed from 
New York with his family and was welcomed in Liver- 
pool, a httle more than a year after his departure for 
America. 

Of his marriage it should be said that both husband 
and wife seemed pecuharly adapted for each other, and 
that their married Hfe proved to be abundantly happy 
until they were separated by death. Mrs. Stevenson was 
warmly received by her husband's family and was espe- 
cially a favourite with her father-in-law. 

From this time till his death, fourteen years later, Steven- 
son's health was a source of almost constant anxiety to 
his family. His lungs were affected so that he had more 
or less frequent hemorrhages. The doctor advised spend- 
ing the winter in Switzerland, and so for two winters 
the invalid somewhat impatiently lived and wrote at 
Davos in the mountains of Switzerland. The next two 
winters, 1 882-1 883, were spent most happily in Southern 
France and the three following in Bournemouth, England, 
where Thomas Stevenson purchased a house and presented 
it to his daughter-in-law. 



xvi Inland Voyage 

All these years of invalidism, however, were full of 
hard work. He established his reputation as a writer, 
and his books were more and more in demand. When 
he returned from California, he had a good deal of liter- 
ary material which he used to a large extent in magazine 
articles. His first popular success was Treasiii^e Island, 
which met with little favour when it first appeared as a 
serial in Young Folks^ Magazine in 1881, but which was 
widely read and very popular when, two years later, it 
appeared in book form. Prince Otto, Kidnapped, A 
Child'' s Garden of Verses, and The Strange Case of Dr. 
Jekyll afid Mr. Hyde, soon followed and won for him a 
very wide and enthusiastic audience. 

Continued ill health made a change of climate again 
desirable, and the death of his father and consequent 
breaking up of the home left him free to go wherever it 
might seem best. Accordingly in 1887 with his family, 
including his mother, he bade farewell to Scotland and 
England, a farewell which proved to be his last, and 
sailed for the United States. If he had any doubt of the 
fame that had preceded him, he must have been surprised 
and pleased with the reception given him in New York. 
Perhaps he compared his arrival at this time with that 
eight years before. Then he came alone, unheralded, an 
emigrant ; he stayed at a poor Httle hotel on West Street, 
near the docks. Now he was surrounded by his family, 
met by friends and others delighting to do him honour, 
not to speak of a crowd of reporters ; he was received 
by people of wealth and distinction and entertained by 



Introduction xvii 

them at their homes. He was sought out by magazine 
editors who vied with one another in offering large sums 
for his work, and he made arrangements with them that 
proved exceedingly profitable to him. 

The first winter he spent in the Adirondack Mountains 
at Saranac Lake, where, in spite of severe cold and much 
discomfort, his health improved ; but the desire to travel 
burned in his blood, and so in the early summer he was 
again going across the plains to California. With a longing 
for the sea, which perhaps he inherited from his ancestors 
who built lighthouses in the northern waters, he hired the 
yacht Casco for a trip in the Pacific. Although the voy- 
age was taken largely for his health, he had a most liberal 
offer from McClure^s Magazine for letters of travel which 
should give an account of his journey. For the three 
years from 1888 to 1890 Stevenson travelled up and down 
the Pacific, visiting the most important groups of islands 
and making long stops at the Hawaiian Islands, the Gil- 
bert Islands, Tahiti, and the Samoan Islands. He had a 
great many interesting experiences of which we may read 
in his book, In the South Seas. Sometimes he was be- 
calmed ; at other times he was in the fury of the hurri- 
cane. He escaped from these dangers of the sea and also 
from those of fever and of savages. He entered into 
the life of the natives, of the missionaries, and of other 
foreign residents, eager to learn and to help. He was 
trusted by the natives and loved by some of the chiefs 
with intense devotion. In Plawaii he visited the leper 
settlement, played croquet with the diseased children 



xviii Inland Voyage 

and cheered those who were giving their lives to the care 
of those unfortunates. Everywhere he carried cheer and 
courage and kindly sympathy and left behind, as he went 
on, groups of sorrowing friends. 

Years before, he had dreamed of building a house in 
the mild chmate of Southern France, and now the longing 
for a home returned, only instead of France it was to be 
in one of the Pacific islands. For several reasons he de- 
cided on one of the Samoan group, and here bought 
four hundred acres, densely wooded, two miles from 
the coast and six hundred feet above the sea. Here 
he built a house that became a resting place for many 
a European travelling in Pacific waters and that stood 
with open doors for scores of natives who found in 
their Tusitala, as they called Stevenson, a sincere friend 
and wise adviser. This place he called Vailima, from the 
Samoan for "five waters." Here he worked, finishing 
many books and beginning others that were left unfinished, 
when four years later, December 3, 1894, he was sud- 
denly stricken down in the midst of his family and died 
without regaining consciousness. 

It is delightful to read of the love that Stevenson in- 
spired in the natives. He was always sincerely their 
friend, listening to their troubles and giving them wise 
advice without fear or favour. When the chief Mataafa 
and his political associates were kept in prison, he visited 
them and did them little kindnesses. He was a father 
to his family of servants and gathered them at the close 
of day in the great hall of his home for evening prayers. 



Introduction xix 

Mr. Balfour has quoted Mr. Lloyd Osbourne's account 
of the way the natives sought Stevenson's advice on all 
sorts of subjects : — 

" Government chiefs and rebels consulted him with 
regard to policy ; political letters were brought to him 
to read and criticize ; his native following was so widely 
divided in party that he was often kept better informed 
on current events than any other one person in the country. 
Old gentlemen would arrive in stately procession with 
squealing pigs for the ' chief-house of wisdom,' and 
would beg advice on the capitation tax or some such 
subject of the hour ; an armed party would come from 
across the island with gifts, and a request that Tusitala 
would take charge of the funds of the village, and buy 
the roof iron for a proposed church. Parties would 
come to hear the latest news of the proposed disarm- 
ing of the country, or to arrange a private audience 
with one of the officials ; and poor war-worn chieftains, 
whose only anxiety was to join the winning side, and 
who wished to consult with Tusitala as to which that 
might be. Mr. Stevenson would sigh sometimes as he 
saw these stately folk crossing the lawn in single file, their 
attendants following behind with presents and baskets, 
but he never failed to hear them." 

They showed their regard for him in many ways, the 
most notable of which probably was the building of the 
"Road of the Loving Heart," a broad and beautiful road 
to Vailima, built by the Mataafa chiefs, who had been be- 
friended in prison. The grief of the Samoans at their 



XX Inland Voyage 

Tusitala's death was deep and sincere. A group of them 
took their places about his body the evening of his death 
and refused to leave. All night locg they kept their 
silent watch, and the following day they bore the coffin 
by a rough and difficult path to the top of the hill above 
Vailima, where he rests far from the graves of his fathers, 
but near a people whom he loved and who devotedly loved 
him in return. On one side of the tomb are the follow- 
ing words in Samoan : — 

THE TOMB OF TUSITALA 

"Whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will 
lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God: 
where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried." 

On the other side is Stevenson's own Requiem. 

Under the wide and starry sky, 
Dig the grave and let me lie. 
Glad did I live and gladly die, 
And I laid me down with a will. 

This be the verse you grave for me : 
Here he lies where he longed to be ; 
Home is the sailor, home from the sea. 
And the hunter home fro >/i the hill. 



^Antwerp 

(\W Boom 




''V\(illebroek 
-^ 

LaekenojPVilievojde 

^ ^^/BRUSSELS 

(y ^ ill o J 



WateVloo 



Lille 



./' 






io^ 



I 



tiarleroi , 



Pout-sur-S^n.t;e9fe^'lf<^"* 

Landreciesj ^^^ I'l^l 



Tupigny^Etreux \^. 

^ Vadencoui'L^^ ^ — ^- ~ 

S t.^uentiny ^.^^Ori^^Tsainte -Benotte 



-(;50 
) 

i 



K 



Precy^ 



Chauny 
JJ^oyon 



^Moy' 



oJ>^-> Piniprez 



^LaFk 




'(J./'Conipiegne 
o\*3<r-^'erberie 
- *j^Pont Sainte Maxence 

L'Isle Adam 




■jllar-n 



Fontainebleau 



Map to illustrate 
AN INLAND VOYAGE 

BY 
Robert Louis Stevenson 



XXI 



PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION 

To equip so small a book with a preface is, I am 
half afraid, to sin against proportion. But a preface 
is more than an author can resist, for it is the reward 
of his labours. When the foundation stone is laid, the 
architect appears with his plans, and struts for an hour 
before the public eye. So with the writer in his preface : 
he may have never a word to say, but he must show 
himself for a moment in the portico, hat in hand, and 
with an urbane demeanour. 

It is best, in such circumstances, to represent a deli- 
cate shade of manner between humility and superiority : 
as if the book had been written by some one else, and 
you had merely run over it and inserted what was good. 
But for my part I have not yet learned the trick to that 
perfection ; I am not yet able to dissemble the warmth 
of my sentiments towards a reader ; and if I meet him 
on the threshold, it is to invite him in with country 
cordiality. 

To say truth, I had no sooner finished reading this 
little book in proof, than I was seized upon by a dis- 
tressing apprehension. It occurred to me that I might 
not only be the first to read these pages, but the last 
as well ; that I might have pioneered this very smiling 



2 Preface to First Edition 

tract of country all in vain, and find not a soul to follow 
in my steps. The more I thought, the more I disliked 
the notion ; until the distaste grew into a sort of panic 
terror, and I rushed into this Preface, which is no more 
than an advertisement for readers. 

What am I to say for my book? Caleb and Joshua 
brought back from Palestine a formidable bunch of 
grapes ; alas ! my book produces naught so nourishing ; 
and for the matter of that, we live in an age when 
people prefer a definition to any quantity of fruit. 

I wonder, would a negative be found enticing? for, 
from the negative point of view, I flatter myself this 
volume has a certain stamp. Although it runs to con- 
siderably upwards of two hundred pages, it contains 
not a single reference to the imbecility of God's uni- 
verse, nor so much as a single hint that I could have 
made a better one myself. — I really do not know where 
my head can have been. I seem to have forgotten all 
that makes it glorious to be man. — 'Tis an omission 
that renders the book philosophically unimportant ; but 
I am in hopes the eccentricity may please in frivolous 
circles. 

To the friend who accompanied me, I owe many 
thanks already, indeed I wish I owed him nothing else ; 
but at this moment I feel towards him an almost exag- 
gerated tenderness. He, at least, will become my 
reader : — if it were only to follow his own travels 
alongside of mine. 

R. L. S. 



TO 
SIR WALTER GRINDLAY SIMPSON, BART. 

My dear Cigarette, 

It was enough that you should have shared so liberally in 
the rains and portages of our voyage; that you should have 
had so hard a battle to recover the derelict Arethusa on the 
flooded Oise ; and that you should thenceforth have piloted 
a mere wreck of mankind to Origny Sainte-Benoite and a 
supper so eagerly desired. It was perhaps more than enough, 
as you once somewhat piteously complained, that I should 
have set down all the strong language to you, and kept the 
appropriate reflections for myself I could not in decency 
expose you to share the disgrace of another and more public 
shipwreck. But now that this voyage of ours is going into 
a cheap edition, that peril, we shall hope, is at an end, and 
I may put your name on the burgee.^ 

But I cannot pause till I have lamented the fate of our two 
ships. That, sir, was not a fortunate day when we projected 
the possession of a canal-barge ; it was not a fortunate day 
when we shared our day-dream with the most hopeful of 
day-dreamers. For a while, indeed, the world looked smil- 
ingly. The barge was procured and christened, and as the 
Eleven Thousand Virgins of Cologne, lay for some months, 
the admired of all admirers, in a pleasant river and under the 

1 A pennant used by yachts. 
3 



4 Dedication 

walls of an ancient town. M. Mattras, the accomplished 
carpenter of Moret, had made her a centre of emulous labour ; 
and you will not have forgotten the amount of sweet cham- 
pagne consumed in the inn at the bridge end, to give zeal 
to the workmen and speed to the work. On the financial 
aspect, I would not willingly dwell. The Eleven Thousand 
Virgins of Cologne rotted in the stream where she was beauti- 
fied. She felt not the impulse of the breeze ; she was never 
harnessed to the patient track-horse. And when at length 
she was sold, by the indignant carpenter of Moret, there were 
sold along with her the Arethusa and the Cigarette^ she of 
cedar, she, as we knew so keenly on a portage, of solid-hearted 
English oak. Now these historic vessels fly the tricolor and 
are known by new and alien names. 

R. L. S. 



AN INLAND VOYAGE 

ANTWERP TO BOOM 

We made a great stir in Antwerp Docks. A stevedore 
and a lot of dock porters took up the two canoes, and 
ran with them for the sUp. A crowd of children followed, 
cheering. The Cigarette went off in a splash and a bub- 
ble of small breaking water. Next moment the Arethusa s 
was after her. A steamer was coming down, men on the 
paddle-box shouted hoarse warnings, the stevedore and 
his porters were bawling from the quay. But in a stroke 
or two the canoes were away out in the middle of the 
Scheldt, and all steamers, and stevedores, and other lo 
'long-shore- vanities were left behind. 

The sun shone brightly; the tide was making — four 
jolly miles an hour ; the wind blew steadily, with occa- 
sional squalls. For my part, I had never been in a canoe 
under sail in my life; and my first experiment out in the 15 
middle of this big river, was not made without some 
trepidation. What would happen when the wind first 
caught my little canvas ? I suppose it was almost as try- 
ing a venture into the regions of the unknown, as to pub- 
lish a first book, or to marry. But my doubts were not 20 
of long duration; and in five minutes you will not be 
surprised to learn that I had tied my sheet. 

5 



6 Inland Voyage 

I own I was a little struck by this circumstance my- 
self; of course, in company with the rest of my fellow- 
men, I had always tied the sheet in a sailing-boat ; but in 
so little and crank a concern as a canoe, and with these 
5 charging squalls, I was not prepared to find myself follow 
the same principle ; and it inspired me with some con- 
temptuous views of our regard for life. It is certainly 
easier to smoke with the sheet fastened ; but I had never 
before weighed a comfortable pipe of tobacco against an 

lo obvious risk, and gravely elected for the comfortable 
pipe. It is a commonplace, that we cannot answer for 
ourselves before we have been tried. But it is not so 
common a reflection, and surely more consoling, that we 
usually find ourselves a great deal braver and better than 

1 5 we thought. I believe this is every one's experience: 
but an apprehension that they may belie themselves in 

■ the future prevents mankind from trumpeting this cheer- 
ful sentiment abroad. I wish sincerely, for it would have 
saved me much trouble, there had been some one to put 

2o me in a good heart about life when I was younger ; to 
tell me how dangers are most portentous on a distant 
sight ; and how the good in a man's spirit will not suffer 
itself to be overlaid, and rarely or never deserts him in the 
hour of need. But we are all for tootling on the senti- 

25 mental flute in literature ; and not a man among us will go 
to the head of the march to sound the heady ^ drums. 

It was agreeable upon the river. A barge or two 
went past laden with hay. Reeds and willows bordered 
1 Impetuous. 



Antwerp to Boom 7 

the stream ; and cattle and grey venerable horses came 
and hung their mild heads over the embankment. Here 
and there was a pleasant village among trees, with a noisy 
shipping yard ; here and there a villa in a lawn. The 
wind served us well up the Scheldt and thereafter up the 5 
Rupel; and we were running pretty free when we began 
to sight the brickyards of Boom, lying for a long way on 
the right bank of the river. The left bank was still green 
and pastoral, with alleys of trees along the embankment, 
and here and there a flight of steps to serve a ferry, 10 
where perhaps there sat a woman with her elbows on her 
knees, or an old gentleman with a staff and silver spec- 
tacles. But Boom and its brickyards grew smokier and 
shabbier with every minute ; until a great church with a 
clock, and a wooden bridge over the river, indicated the 15 
central quarters of the town. 

Boom is not a nice place, and is only remarkable for 
one thing : that the majority of the inhabitants have a 
private opinion that they can speak English, which is not 
justified by fact. This gave a kind of haziness to our 20 
intercourse. As for the Hotel de la Navigation, I think it 
is the worst feature of the place. It boasts of a sanded 
parlour, with a bar at one end, looking on the street ; 
and another sanded parlour, darker and colder, with an 
empty bird-cage and a tricolour subscription box by way 25 
of sole adornment, where we made shift to dine in the 
company of three uncommunicative engineer apprentices 
and a silent bagman.^ The food, as usual in Belgium, 
1 A commercial traveller. 



8 Inland Voyage 

was of a nondescript occasional character; indeed, I 
have never been able to detect anything in the nature of 
a meal among this pleasing people ; they seem to peck 
and trifle with viands all day long in an amateur spirit : 
5 tentatively French, truly German, and somehow falling 
between the two. 

The empty bird-cage, swept and garnished, and with 
no trace of the old piping favourite, save where two wires 
had been pushed apart to hold its lump of sugar, carried 

lo with it a sort of graveyard cheer. The engineer appren- 
tices would have nothing to say to us, nor indeed to the 
bagman ; but talked low and sparingly to one another, or 
raked us in the gas-light with a gleam of spectacles. For 
though handsome lads, they were all (in the Scotch 

15 phrase) barnacled.^ 

There was an English maid in the hotel, who had been 
long enough out of England to pick up all sorts of funny 
foreign idioms, and all sorts of curious foreign ways, 
which need not here be specified. She spoke to us very 

20 fluently in her jargon, asked us information as to the 
manners of the present day in England, and obligingly 
corrected us when we attempted to answer. But as we 
were dealing with a woman, perhaps our information was 
not so much thrown away as it appeared. The sex Hkes 

25 to pick up knowledge and yet preserve its superiority. 
It is good policy, and almost necessary in the circum- 
stances. If a man finds a woman admire him, were it 
only for his acquaintance with geography, he will begin 
1 Fitted with spectacles. 



Antwerp to Boom 9 

at once to build upon the admiration. It is only by un- 
intermittent snubbing that the pretty ones can keep us in 
our place. Men, as Miss Howe or Miss Harlowe would 
have said, "are such encroachersy For my part, I am 
body and soul with the women ; and after a well-married 5 
couple, there is nothing so beautiful in the world as the 
myth of the divine huntress. It is no use for a man to 
take to the woods ; we know him ; Anthony tried the 
same thing long ago, and had a pitiful time of it by all 
accounts. But there is this about some women, which 10 
overtops the best gymnosophist among men, that they 
suffice to themselves, and can walk in a high and cold 
zone without the countenance of any trousered being. 
I declare, although the reverse of a professed ascetic, 
I am more obliged to women for this ideal than I should 15 
be to the majority of them, or indeed to any but one, for 
a spontaneous kiss. There is nothing so encouraging as 
the spectacle of self-sufficiency. And when I think of 
the slim and lovely maidens, running the woods all night 
to the note of Diana's horn ; moving among the old oaks, 20 
as fancy-free as they ; things of the forest and the star- 
light, not touched by the commotion of man's hot and 
turbid life — although there are plenty other ideals that I 
should prefer — I find my heart beat at the thought of 
this one. 'Tis to fail in life, but to fail with what a grace ! 25 
That is not lost which is not regretted. And where — 
here slips out the male — where would be much of the 
glory of inspiring love, if there were no contempt to over- 
come ? 



lo Inland Voyage 



ON THE VVILLEBROEK CANAL 

Next morning, when we set forth on the Willebroek 
Canal, the rain began heavy and chill. The water of 
the canal stood at about the drinking temperature of 
tea ; and under this cold aspersion the surface was 
S covered with steam. The exhilaration of departure, and 
the easy motion of the boats under each stroke of the 
paddles, supported us through this misfortune while it 
lasted ; and when the cloud passed and the sun came 
out again, our spirits went up above the range of stay-at- 

lo home humours. A good breeze rustled and shivered in 
the rows of trees that bordered the canal. The leaves 
flickered in and out of the light in tumultuous masses. 
It seemed saiHng weather to eye and ear ; but down 
between the banks the wind reached us only in faint 

15 and desultory puffs. There was hardly enough to steer 
by. Progress was intermittent, and unsatisfactory. A 
jocular person, of marine antecedents, hailed us from the 
tow-path with a '^C^esf vite^ mats c'est long^ 

The canal was busy enough. Every now and then we 

20 met or overtook a long string of boats, with great green 
tillers ; high sterns with a window on either side of the 
rudder, and perhaps a jug or a flower-pot in one of the 
windows ; a dingy following behind ; a woman busied 
about the day's dinner, and a handful of children. These 

25 barges were all tied one behind the other with tow-ropes. 



On the Willebroek Canal 1 1 

to the number of twenty-five or thirty; and the line was 
headed and kept in motion by a steamer of strange con- 
struction. It had neither paddle-wheel nor screw ; but 
by some gear not rightly comprehensible to the unme- 
chanical mind, it fetched up over its bow a small bright s 
chain which lay along the bottom of the canal, and paying 
it out again over the stern, dragged itself forward, link 
by Unk, with its whole retinue of loaded scows. Until 
one had found out the key to the enigma, there was 
something solemn and uncomfortable in the progress of lo 
one of these trains, as it moved gently along the water 
with nothing to mark its advance but an eddy alongside 
dying away into the wake. 

Of all the creatures of commercial enterprise, a canal- 
barge is by far the most delightful to consider. It may 15 
spread its sails, and then you see it sailing high above 
the tree-tops and the wind-mill, sailing on the aqueduct, 
sailing through the green corn-lands : the most picturesque 
of things amphibious. Or the horse plods along at a 
foot-pace as if there were no such thing as business in 20 
the world; and the man dreaming at the tiller sees the 
same spire on the horizon all day long. It is a mystery 
how things ever get to their destination at this rate ; and 
to see the barges waiting their turn at a lock, affords a 
fine lesson of how easily the world may be taken. There 25 
should be many contented spirits on board, for such a 
life is both to travel and to stay at home. 

The chimney smokes for dinner as you go along ; the 
banks of the canal slowly unroll their scenery to con- 



12 Inland Voyage 

teniplative eyes ; the barge floats by great forests and 
through great cities with their public buildings and their 
lamps at night ; and for the bargee, in his floating home, 
" travelling abed," it is merely as if he were listening to 
5 another man's story or turning the leaves of a picture 
book in which he had no concern. He may take his 
afternoon walk in some foreign country on the banks of 
the canal, and then come home to dinner at his own 
fireside. 

lo There is not enough exercise in such a life for any 
high measure of health ; but a high measure of health is 
only necessary for unhealthy people. The slug of a 
fellow, who is never ill nor well, has a quiet time of it in 
life, and dies all the easier. 

IS I am sure I would rather be a bargee than occupy any 
position under Heaven that required attendance at an 
office. There are few callings, I should say, where a 
man gives up less of his liberty in return for regular 
meals. The bargee is on shipboard — he is master in 

20 his own ship — he can land whenever he will — he can 
never be kept beating off a lee shore a whole frosty night 
when the sheets are as hard as iron ; and so far as I can 
make out, time stands as nearly still with him as is com- 
patible with the return of bedtime or the dinner-hour. 

25 It is not easy to see why a bargee should ever die. 

Half-way between Willebroek and Villevorde, in a beau- 
tiful reach of canal like a squire's avenue, we went ashore 
to lunch. There were two eggs, a junk of bread, and a 
bottle of wine on board the Arethusa ; and two eggs and 



On the Willebroek Canal 13 

an Etna cooking apparatus on board the Cigarette. The 
master of the latter boat smashed one of the eggs in the 
course of disembarkation ; but observing pleasantly that 
it might still be cooked a la papier, he dropped it into 
the Etna, in its covering of Flemish newspaper. We 5 
landed in a bhnk of fine weather ; but we had not been 
two minutes ashore, before the wind freshened into half 
a gale, and the rain began to patter on our shoulders. 
We sat as close about the Etna as we could. The spirits 
burned with great ostentation ; the grass caught flame 10 
every minute or two, and had to be trodden out ; and 
before long there were several burnt fingers of the 
party. But the soHd quantity of cookery accomplished 
was out of proportion with so much display ; and when 
we desisted, after two applications of the fire, the sound 15 
egg was little more than loo-warm ; and as for a la papier, 
it was a cold and sordid fricassee of printer's ink and 
broken egg-shell. We made shift to roast the other two, 
by putting them close to the burning spirits ; and that 
with better success. And then we uncorked the bottle of 20 
wine, and sat down in a ditch with our canoe aprons over 
our knees. It rained smartly. Discomfort, when it is 
honestly uncomfortable and makes no nauseous preten- 
sions to the contrary, is a vastly humorous business ; and 
people well steeped and stupefied in the open air, are in 25 
a good vein for laughter. From this point of view, even 
Q^g a la papier, offered by way of food, may pass muster 
as a sort of accessory to the fun. But this manner of 
jest, although it may be taken in good part, does not 



14 Inland Voyage 

invite repetition ; and from that time forward, the Etna 
voyaged like a gentleman in the locker of the Cigarette. 

It is ahnost unnecessary to mention that when lunch 
was over and we got aboard again and made sail, the 

5 wind promptly died away. The rest of the journey to 
Villevorde, we still spread our canvas to the unfavouring 
air ; and with now and then a puff, and now and then a 
spell of paddling, drifted along from lock to lock, be- 
tween the orderly trees. 

lo It was a fine, green, fat landscape ; or rather a mere 
green water-lane, going on from village to village. 
Things had a settled look, as in places long lived in. 
Crop-headed children spat upon us from the bridges as 
we went below, with a true conservative feeling. But 

1 5 even more conservative were the fishermen, intent upon 
their floats, who let us go by without one glance. They 
perched upon sterlings and buttresses and along the slope 
of the embankment, gently occupied. They were indif- 
ferent, like pieces of dead nature. They did not move 

2o any more than if they had been fishing in an old Dutch 
print. The leaves fluttered, the water lapped, but they 
continued in one stay like so many churches established 
by law. You might have trepanned every one of their 
innocent heads, and found no more than so much coiled 

25 fishing line below their skulls. I do not care for your 
stalwart fellows in india-rubber stockings breasting up 
mountain torrents with a salmon rod ; but I do dearly 
love the class of man who plies his unfruitful art, for ever 
and a day, by still and depopulated waters. 



The Royal Sport Nautique 15 

At the last lock, just beyond Villevorde, there was a 
lock mistress who spoke French comprehensibly, and 
told us we were still a couple of leagues from Brussels. 
At the same place the rain began again. It fell in 
straight, parallel lines ; and the surface of the canal was 5 
thrown up into an infinity of little crystal fountains. 
There were no beds to be had in the neighbourhood. 
Nothing for it but to lay the sails aside and address our- 
selves to steady paddling in the rain. 

Beautiful country houses, with clocks and long lines of 10 
shuttered windows, and fine old trees standing in groves 
and avenues, gave a rich and sombre aspect in the rain 
and the deepening dusk to the shores of the canal. I 
seem to have seen something of the same effect in engrav- 
ings : opulent landscapes, deserted and overhung with 15 
the passage of storm. And throughout we had the escort 
of a hooded cart, which trotted shabbily along the tow- 
path, and kept at an almost uniform distance in our wake. 

THE ROYAL SPORT NAUTIQUE 

The rain took off near Laeken. But the sun was 
already down ; the air was chill ; and we had scarcely a 20 
dry stitch between the pair of us. Nay, now we found 
ourselves near the end of the All^e Verte, and on the very 
threshold of Brussels we were confronted by a serious 
difficulty. The shores were closely lined by canal- boats 
waiting their turn at the lock. Nowhere was there any 25 
convenient landing-place ; nowhere so much as a stable- 



1 6 Inland Voyage 

yard to leave the canoes in for the night. We scrambled 
ashore and entered an estaminet^ where some sorry fel- 
lows were drinking with the landlord. The landlord was 
pretty round with us ; he knew of no coach-house or 
5 stable-yard, nothing of the sort ; and seeing we had come 
with no mind to drink, he did not conceal his impatience 
to be rid of us. One of the sorry fellows came to the rescue. 
Somewhere in the corner of the basin there was a slip, he 
informed us, and something else besides, not very clearly 

lo defined by him, but hopefully construed by his hearers. 
Sure enough there was the slip in the corner of the 
basin ; and at the top of it two nice-looking lads in boat- 
ing clothes. The Arethusa addressed himself to these. 
One of them said there would be no difficulty about a 

15 night's lodging for our boats; and the other, taking a 
cigarette from his lips, inquired if they were made by 
Searle & Son. The name was quite an introduction. 
Half-a-dozen other young men came out of the boat- 
house bearing the superscription Royal Sport Nau- 

20TIQUE, and joined in the talk. They were all very 
polite, voluble and enthusiastic ; and their discourse was 
interlarded with English boating terms and the names of 
English boat-builders and English clubs. I do not know, 
to my shame, any spot in my native land where I should 

25 have been so warmly received by the same number of 

people. We were English boating men, and the Belgian 

boating men fell upon our necks. I wonder if French 

Huguenots were as cordially greeted by English Protes- 

1 A drinking-house. 



The Royal Sport Nautique 17 

tants when they came across the Channel out of great 
tribulation. But after all, what religion knits people so 
closely as a common sport? 

The canoes were carried into the boat-house ; they 
were washed down for us by the Club servants, the sails 5 
were hung out to dry, and everything made as snug and 
tidy as a picture. And in the meanwhile we were led 
upstairs by our new-found brethren, for so more than one 
of them stated the relationship, and made free of their 
lavatory. This one lent us soap, that one a towel, a third 10 
and fourth helped us to undo our bags. And all the time 
such questions, such assurances of respect and sympathy ! 
I declare I never knew what glory was before. 

" Yes, yes, the Royal Sport Nautique is the oldest club 
in Belgium." 15 

" We number two hundred." 

" We " — this is not a substantive speech, but an abstract 
of many speeches, the impression left upon my mind after 
a great deal of talk ; and very youthful, pleasant, natural 
and patriotic it seems to me to be — "We have gained 20 
all races, except those where we were cheated by the 
French." 

"You must leave all your wet things to be dried." 

" O ! entre freres ! In any boat-house in England we 
should find the same." ( I cordially hope they might.) 25 

" En Angkterre, vons employ ez des sliding- seats, n'est- 
ce pas ? " 

" We are all employed in commerce during the day ; but 
in the evening, voyez vous, nous sommes serieux'' 



1 8 Inland Voyage 

These were the words. They were all employed over 
the frivolous mercantile concerns of Belgium during the 
day ; but in the evening they found some hours for the 
serious concerns of life. I may have a wrong idea of 
5 wisdom, but I think that was a very wise remark. People 
connected with literature and philosophy are busy all their 
days in getting rid of second-hand notions and false 
standards. It is their profession, in the sweat of their 
brows, by dogged thinking, to recover their old fresh 

lo view of life, and distinguish what they really and originally 
like from what they have only learned to tolerate perforce. 
And these Royal Nautical Sportsmen had the distinction 
still quite legible in their hearts. They had still those 
clean perceptions of what is nice and nasty, what is inter- 

15 esting and what is dull, which envious old gentlemen 
refer to as illusions. The nightmare illusion of middle age, 
the bear's hug of custom gradually squeezing the life out 
of a man's soul, had not yet begun for these happy-starr'd 
young Belgians. They still knew that the interest they 

2o took in their business was a trifling affair compared to 
their spontaneous, long-suffering affection for nautical 
sports. To know what you prefer, instead of humbly say- 
ing Amen to what the world tells you you ought to pre- 
fer, is to have kept your soul alive. Such a man may be 

25 generous ; he may be honest in something more than the 
commercial sense ; he may love his friends with an elec- 
tive, personal sympathy, and not accept them as an 
adjunct of the station to which he has been called. He 
may be a man, in short, acting on his own instincts, keeping 



The Royal Sport Nautique 19 

in his own shape that God made him in ; and not a mere 
crank in the social engine house, welded on principles that 
he does not understand, and for purposes that he does 
not care for. 

For will anyone dare to tell me that business is more 5 
entertaining than foohng among boats? He must have 
never seen a boat, or never seen an office, who says so. 
And for certain the one is a great deal better for the 
health. There should be nothing so much a man's busi- 
ness as his amusements. Nothing but money-grubbing 
can be put forward to the contrary ; no one but 

Mammon, the least erected spirit that fell 

From Heaven, 

durst risk a word in answer. It is but a lying cant that 
would represent the merchant and the banker as people 15 
disinterestedly toihng for mankind, and then most useful 
when they are most absorbed in their transactions ; for 
the man is more important than his services. And when 
my Royal Nautical Sportsman shall have so far fallen 
from his hopeful youth that he cannot pluck up an en- 20 
thusiasm over anything but his ledger, I venture to doubt 
whether he will be near so nice a fellow, and whether he 
would welcome, with so good a grace, a couple of 
drenched Englishmen paddling into Brussels in the 
dusk. 25 

When we had changed our wet clothes and drunk a glass 
of pale ale to the Club's prosperity, one of their number 
escorted us to an hotel. He would not join us at our 
dinner, but he had no objection to a glass of wine. 



20 Inland Voyage 

Enthusiasm is very wearing ; and I begin to understand 
why prophets were unpopular in Judaea, where they were 
best known. For three stricken hours did this excellent 
young man sit beside us to dilate on boats and boat-races ; 
5 and before he left, he was kind enough to order our bed- 
room candles. 

We endeavoured now and again to change the subject ; 
but the diversion did not last a moment : the Royal Nau- 
tical Sportsman bridled, shied, answered the question, 

lo and then breasted once more into the swelhng tide of his 
subject. I call it his subject; but I think it was he who 
was subjected. The Are thus a, who holds all racing as a 
creature of the devil, found himself in a pitiful dilemma. 
He durst not own his ignorance for the honour of Old 

15 England, and spoke away about English clubs and Eng- 
lish oarsmen whose fame had never before come to his 
ears. Several times, and once, above all, on the question 
of sliding-seats, he was within an ace of exposure. As 
for the Cigarette, who has rowed races in the heat of his 

20 blood, but now disowns these slips of his wanton youth, his 
case was still more desperate ; for the Royal Nautical 
proposed that he should take an oar in one of their eights 
on the morrow, to compare the English with the Belgian 
stroke. I could see my friend perspiring in his chair 

25 whenever that particular topic came up. And there was 
yet another proposal which had the same effect on both 
of us. It appeared that the champion canoeist of Europe 
(as well as most other champions) was a Royal Nautical 
Sportsman. And if we would only wait until the Sunday, 



At Maubeuge 21 

this infernal paddler would be so condescending as to 
accompany us on our next stage. Neither of us had the 
least desire to drive the coursers of the sun against Apollo. 
When the young man was gone, we countermanded 
our candles, and ordered some brandy and water. The 5 
great billows had gone over our head. The Royal Nau- 
tical Sportsmen were as nice young fellows as a man would 
wish to see, but they were a trifle too young and a thought 
too nautical for us. We began to see that we were old 
and cynical ; we liked ease and the agreeable rambling 10 
of the human mind about this and the other subject ; we 
did not want to disgrace our native land by messing an 
eight, or toiling pitifully in the wake of the champion 
canoeist. In short, we had recourse to flight. It seemed 
ungrateful, but we tried to make that good on a card 15 
loaded with sincere compUments. And indeed it was no 
time for scruples ; we seemed to feel the hot breath of 
the champion on our necks. 



AT MAUBEUGE 

Partly from the terror we had of our good friends the 
Royal Nauticals, partly from the fact that there were no 20 
fewer than fifty-five locks between Brussels and Charleroi, 
we concluded that we should travel by train across the 
frontier, boats and ah. Fifty-five locks in a day's journey 
was pretty well tantamount to trudging the whole distance 
on foot, with the canoes upon our shoulders, an object of 25 



22 Inland Voyage 

astonishment to the trees on the canal side, and of honest 
derision to all right-thinking children. 

To pass the frontier, even in a train, is a difficult matter 
for the Arethusa. He is, somehow or other, a marked 
5 man for the official eye. Wherever he journeys, there are 
the officers gathered together. Treaties are solemnly 
signed, foreign ministers, ambassadors, and consuls sit 
throned in state from China to Peru, and the Union Jack 
flutters on all the winds of heaven. Under these safe- 

lo guards, portly clergymen, school-mistresses, gentlemen in 
grey tweed suits, and all the ruck and rabble of British 
touristry pour unhindered, Murray in hand, over the 
railways of the continent, and yet the slim person of the 
Arethusa is taken in the meshes, while these great fish go 

15 on their way rejoicing. If he travels without a passport, 
he is cast, without any figure about the matter, into noi- 
some dungeons : if his papers are in order, he is suffered 
to go his way indeed, but not until he has been humiliated 
by a general increduUty. He is a born British subject, 

20 yet he has never succeeded in persuading a single official 
of his nationality. He flatters himself he is indifferent 
honest ; yet he is rarely taken for anything better than a 
spy, and there is no absurd and disreputable means of 
livelihood but has been attributed to him in some heat of 

25 official or popular distrust. ... 

For the life of me I cannot understand it. I too have 
been knolled to church, and sat at good men's feasts ; but 
I bear no mark of it. I am as strange as a Jack Indian to 
their official spectacles. I might come from any part of 



At Maubeuge 23 

the globe, it seems, except from where I do. My an- 
cestors have laboured in vain, and the glorious Constitu- 
tion cannot protect me in my walks abroad. It is a great 
thing, believe me, to present a good normal type of the 
nation you belong to. ^ 

Nobody else was asked for his papers on the way to 
Maubeuge ; but I was ; and although I clung to my rights, 
I had to choose at last between accepting the humiliation 
and being left behind by the train. I was sorry to give 
way ; but I wanted to get to Maubeuge. 10 

Maubeuge is a fortified town, with a very good inn, the 
Grand Cerf. It seemed to be inhabited principally by 
soldiers and bagmen ; at least, these were all that we 
saw, except the hotel servants. We had to stay there 
some time, for the canoes were in no hurry to follow us, 15 
and at last stuck hopelessly in the custom-house until we 
went back to liberate them. There was nothing to do, 
nothing to see. We had good meals, which was a great 
matter ; but that was all. 

The Cigarette was nearly taken up upon a charge of 20 
drawing the fortifications : a feat of which he was hope- 
lessly incapable. And besides, as I suppose each bellig- 
erent nation has a plan of the other's fortified places 
already, these precautions are of the nature of shutting the 
stable-door after the steed is away. But I have no doubt 25 
they help to keep up a good spirit at home. It is a great 
thing if you can persuade people that they are somehow 
or other partakers in a mystery. It makes them feel 
bigger. Even the Freemasons, who have been shown up to 



24 Inland Voyage 

satiety, preserve a kind of pride ; and not a grocer among 
them, however honest, harmless, and empty-headed he may 
feel himself to be at bottom, but comes home from one of 
their coenacula ^ with a portentous significance for himself. 
5 It is an odd thing, how happily two people, if there are 
two, can live in a place where they have no acquaintance. 
I think the spectacle of a whole life in which you have no 
part paralyses personal desire. You are content to be- 
come a mere spectator. The baker stands in his door ; 

10 the colonel with his three medals goes by to the cafe at 
night ; the troops drum and trumpet and man the ram- 
parts, as bold as so many lions. It would task language to 
say how placidly you behold all this. In a place where 
you have taken some root, you are provoked out of your 

15 indifference ; you have a hand in the game ; your friends 
are fighting with the army. But in a strange town, not 
small enough to grow too soon familiar, nor so large as to 
have laid itself out for travellers, you stand so far apart 
from the business, that you positively forget it would be 

zo possible to go nearer ; you have so little human interest 
around you, that you do not remember yourself to be a 
man. ' Perhaps, in a very short time, you would be one no 
longer. Gymnosophists go into a wood, with all nature 
seething around them, with romance on every side ; it 

25 would be much more to the purpose, if they took up their 

abode in a dull country town, where they should see just so 

much of humanity as to keep them from desiring more, 

and only the stale externals of man's life. These externals 

1 Feasts. 



At Maubeuge 25 

are as dead to us as so many formalities, and speak a dead 
language in our eyes and ears. They have no more mean- 
ing than an oath, or a salutation. We are so much accus- 
tomed to see married couples going to church of a Sun- 
day that we have clean forgotten what they represent ; 5 
and novelists are driven to rehabihtate adultery, no less, 
when they wish to show us what a beautiful thing it is for 
a man and a woman to live for each other. 

One person in Maubeuge, however, showed me some- 
thing more than his outside. That was the driver of the 10 
hotel omnibus : a mean- enough looking little man, as 
well as I can remember ; but with a spark of something 
human in his soul. He had heard of our htUe journey, 
and came to me at once in envious sympathy. How he 
longed to travel ! he told me. How he longed to be 15 
somewhere else, and see the round world before he went 
into the grave ! " Here I am," said he. " I drive to 
the station. Well. And then I drive back again to the 
hotel. And so on every day and all the week round. 
My God, is that life? " I could not say I thought it was 20 
— for him. He pressed me to tell him where I had 
been, and where I hoped to go ; and as he hstened, I 
declare the fellow sighed. Might not this have been a 
brave African traveller, or gone to the Indies after Drake? 
But it is an evil age for the gipsily inclined among men. 25 
He who can sit squarest on a three-legged stool, he it is 
who has the wealth and glory. 

I wonder if my friend is still driving the omnibus for 
the Grand Cerf? Not very likely, I believe ; for I think 



26 • Inland Voyage 

he was on the eve of mutiny when we passed through, 
and perhaps our passage determined him for good. Bet- 
ter a thousand times that he should be a tramp, and mend 
pots and pans by the wayside, and sleep under trees, 

5 and see the dawn and the sunset every day above a new 
horizon. I think I hear you say that it is a respectable 
position to drive an omnibus ? Very well. What right 
has he who hkes it not to keep those who would like it 
dearly out of this respectable position ? Suppose a dish 

lo were not to my taste, and you told me that it was a fa- 
vourite among the rest of the company, what should I 
conclude from that? Not to finish the dish against my 
stomach, I suppose. 

Respectability is a very good thing in its way, but it 

15 does not rise superior to all considerations. I would not 
for a moment venture to hint that it was a matter of 
taste ; but I think I will go as far as this : that if a po- 
sition is admittedly unkind, uncomfortable, unnecessary, 
and superfluously useless, although it were as respectable 

20 as the Church of England, the sooner a man is out of it, 
the better for himself, and all concerned. 



On the Sambre Canalized 27 



ON THE SAMBRE CANALIZED 

To QUARTES 

About three in the afternoon the whole establishment 
of the Grand Cerf accompanied us to the water's edge. 
The man of the omnibus was there with haggard eyes. 
Poor cage-bird ! Do I not remember the time when I 
myself haunted the station, to watch train after train carry S 
its complement of freemen into the night, and read the 
names of distant places on the time-bills with indescrib- 
able longings ? 

We were not clear of the fortifications before the rain 
began. The wind was contrary, and blew in furious gusts ; 10 
nor were the aspects of nature any more clement than the 
doings of the sky. For we passed through a stretch of 
bhghted country, sparsely covered with brush, but hand- 
somely enough diversified with factory chimneys. We 
landed in a soiled meadow among some pollards, and 15 
there smoked a pipe in a flaw of fair weather. But the wind 
blew so hard we could get httle else to smoke. There 
were no natural objects in the neighbourhood, but some 
sordid workshops. A group of children headed by a tall 
girl stood and watched us from a litde distance all the 20 
time we stayed. I heartily wonder what they thought of 
us. 

At Hautmont, the lock was almost impassable; the 



28 Inland Voyage 

landing-place being steep and high, and the launch at a 
long distance. Near a dozen grimy workmen lent us a 
hand. They refused any reward ; and, what is much 
better, refused it handsomely, without conveying any 
5 sense of insult. " It is a way we have in our country- 
side," said they. And a very becoming way it is. In 
Scotland, where also you will get services for nothing, the 
good people reject your money as if you had been trying 
to corrupt a voter. When people take the trouble to do 

lo dignified acts, it is worth while to take a little more, and 
allow the dignity to be common to all concerned. But 
in our brave Saxon countries, where we plod threescore 
years and ten in the mud, and the wind keeps singing in 
our ears from birth to burial, we do our good and bad 

IS with a high hand and almost offensively ; and make even 
our alms a witness-bearing and an act of war against the 
wrong. 

After Hautmont, the sun came forth again and the wind 
went down ; and a little paddling took us beyond the 

20 ironworks and through a delectable land. The river 
wound among low hills, so that sometimes the sun was at 
our backs, and sometimes it stood right ahead, and the 
river before us was one sheet of intolerable glory. On 
either hand, meadows and orchards bordered, with a 

25 margin of sedge and water flowers, upon the river. The 
hedges were of great height, woven about the trunks of 
hedgerow elms ; and the fields, as they were often very 
small, looked like a series of bowers along the stream. 
There was never any prospect ; sometimes a hill-top with 



On the Sambre Canalized 29 

its trees would look over the nearest hedgerow, just to 
make a middle distance for the sky ; but that was all. 
The heaven was bare of clouds. The atmosphere, after 
the rain, was of enchanting purity. The river doubled 
among the hillocks, a shining strip of mirror glass ; and 5 
the dip of the paddles set the flowers shaking along the 
brink. 

In the meadows wandered black and" white cattle 
fantastically marked. One beast, with a white head and 
the rest of the body glossy black, came to the edge to 10 
drink, and stood gravely twitching his ears at me as I 
went by, like some sort of preposterous clergyman in a 
play. A moment after I heard a loud plunge, and, turn- , 
ing my head, saw the clergyman struggling to shore. 
The bank had given way under his feet. i^ 

Besides the cattle, we saw no living things except a 
few birds and a great many fishermen. These sat along 
the edges of the meadows, sometimes with one rod, 
sometimes with as many as half a score. They seemed 
stupefied with contentment ; and when we induced them 20 
to exchange a few words with us about the weather, their 
voices sounded quiet and far-away. There was a strange 
diversity of opinion among them as to the kind of fish 
for which they set their lures ; although they were all 
agreed in this, that the river was abundantly supplied. 25 
Where, it was plain that no two of them had ever caught 
the same kind of fish, we could not help suspecting that 
perhaps not any one of them had ever caught a fish at 
all. I hope, since the afternoon was so lovely, that they 



JO Inland Voyage 

were one and all rewarded ; and that a silver booty went 
home in every basket for the pot. Some of my friends 
would cry shame on me for this ; but I prefer a man, 
were he only an angler, to the bravest pair of gills in all 
5 God's waters. I do not affect fishes unless when cooked 
in sauce ; whereas an angler is an important piece of 
river scenery, and hence deserves some recognition among 
canoeists. He can always tell you where you are after 
a mild fashion ; and his quiet presence serves to accen- 

lo tuate the solitude and stillness, and remind you of the 
ghttering citizens below your boat. 

The Sambre turned so industriously to and fro among 
his little hills, that it was past six before we drew near 
the lock at Quartes. There were some children on the 

15 tow-path, with whom the Cigarette fell into a chaffing 
talk as they ran along beside us. It was in vain that I 
warned him. In vain I told him, in English, that boys 
were the most dangerous creatures ; and if once you be- 
gan with them, it was safe to end in a shower of stones. 

20 For my own part, whenever anything was addressed to 
me, I smiled gently and shook my head as though I were 
an inoffensive person inadequately acquainted with 
French. For indeed I have had such experience at 
home, that I would sooner meet many wild animals than 

25 a troop of healthy urchins. 

But I was doing injustice to these peaceable, young 
Hainaulters. When the Cigarette went off to make in- 
quiries, I got out upon the bank to smoke a pipe and 
superintend the boats, and became at once the centre of 



On the Sambre Canalized 31 

much amiable curiosity. The children had been joined 
by this time by a young woman and a mild lad who had ' 
lost an arm ; and this gave me more security. When I 
let slip my first word or so in French, a little girl nodded 
her head with a comical grown-up air. " Ah, you see," 5 
she said, " he understands well enough now ; he was just 
making beheve." And the Uttle group laughed together 
very good-naturedly. 

They were much impressed when they heard we came 
from England ; and the little girl proffered the informa- 10 
tion that England was an island " and a far way from 
here — bien loin (Ticiy 

" Ay, you may say that, a far way from here," said the 
lad with one arm. 

I was as nearly home-sick as ever I was in my life ; 15 
they seemed to make it such an incalculable distance to 
the place where I first saw the day. 

They admired the canoes very much. And I observed 
one piece of delicacy in these children which is worthy 
of record. They had been deafening us for the last hun- 20 
dred yards with petitions for a sail ; ay, and they deaf- 
ened us to the same tune next morning when we came to 
start ; but then, when the canoes were lying empty, there 
was no word of any such petition. Delicacy ? or perhaps 
a bit of fear for the water in so crank a vessel? I hate 25 
cynicism a great deal worse than I do the devil ; unless per- 
haps the two were the same thing? And yet 'tis a good 
tonic ; the cold tub and bath-towel of the sentiments ; and 
positively necessary to life in cases of advanced sensibility. 



32 Inland Voyage 

From the boats they turned to my costume. They 
could not make enough of my red sash ; and my knife 
filled them with awe. 

" They make them like that in England," said the boy 

S with one arm. I was glad he did not know how badly 

we make them in England now-a-days. " They are for 

people who go away to sea," he added, '^ and to defend 

one's life against great fish." 

I felt I was becoming a more and more romantic 
lo figure to the little group at every word. And so I sup- 
pose I was. Even my pipe, although it was an ordinary 
French clay, pretty well "trousered," as they call it, 
would have a rarity in their eyes, as a thing coming from 
so far away. And if my feathers were not very fine in 
15 themselves, they were all from over seas. One thing in 
my outfit, however, tickled them out of all politeness; 
and that was the bemired condition of my canvas shoes. 
I suppose they were sure the mud at any rate was a home 
product. The little girl (who was the genius of the party) 
20 displayed her own sabots ^ in competition ; and I wish you 
could have seen how gracefully and merrily she did it. 

The young woman's milk-can, a great amphora of 
hammered brass, stood some way off upon the sward. I 
was glad of an opportunity to divert public attention 
25 from myself, and return some of the compliments I had 
received. So I admired it cordially both for form and 
colour, telling them, and very truly, that it was as beauti- 
ful as gold. They were not surprised. The things v/ere 
1 Wooden shoes worn by the peasants. 



Pont-sur-Sambre ^^ 

plainly the boast of the country-side. And the children 
expatiated on the costliness of the amphorae, which sell 
sometimes as high as thirty francs apiece ; told me how 
they were carried on donkeys, one on either side of the 
saddle, a brave caparison in themselves ; and how they 5 
were to be seen all over the district, and at the larger 
farms in great number and of great size. 



PONT-SUR-SAMBRE 

We are Pedlars 

The Cigafrtfe returned with good news. There were 
beds to be had some ten minutes' walk from where we 
were, at a place called Pont. We stowed the canoes in 10 
a granary, and asked among the children for a guide. 
The circle at once widened round us, and our offers of 
reward were received in dispiriting silence. We were 
plainly a pair of Bluebeards to the children ; they might 
speak to us in public places, and where they had the ad- 15 
vantage of numbers ; but it was another thing to venture 
off alone with two uncouth and legendary characters, who 
had dropped from the clouds upon their hamlet this quiet 
afternoon, sashed and beknived, and with a flavour of 
great voyages. The owner of the granary came to our 20 
assistance, singled out one little fellow and threatened 
him with corporalities ; or I suspect we should have had 
to find the way for ourselves. As it was, he was more 
frightened at the firanary man than the strangers, having 



34 Inland Voyage 

perhaps had some experience of the former. But I fancy 
his httle heart must have been going at a fine rate ; for 
he kept trotting at a respectful distance in front, and 
looking back at us with scared eyes. Not otherwise may 
5 the children of the young world have guided Jove or one 
of his Olympian compeers on an adventure. 

A miry lane led us up from Quartes with its church 
and bickering wind-mill. The hinds were trudging home- 
wards from the fields. A brisk httle old woman passed 

lo us by. She was seated across a donkey between a pair 
of gHttering milk-cans ; and, as she went, she kicked 
jauntily with her heels upon the donkey's side, and scat- 
tered shrill remarks among the wayfarers. It was nota- 
ble that none of the tired men took the trouble to reply. 

15 Our conductor soon led us out of the lane and across 
country. The sun had gone down, but the west in front 
of us was one lake of level gold. The path wandered 
awhile in the open, and then passed under a trellis Hke a 
bower indefinitely prolonged. On either hand were 

20 shadowy orchards ; cottages lay low among the leaves and 
sent their smoke to heaven ; every here and there, in an 
opening, appeared the great gold face of the west. 

I never saw the Cigarette in such an idyllic frame of 
mind. He waxed positively lyrical in praise of country 

25 scenes. I was little less exhilarated myself; the mild air 
of the evening, the shadows, the rich lights, and the 
silence made a symphonious accompaniment .about our 
walk; and we both determined to avoid towns for the 
future and sleep in hamlets. 



Pont-sur-Sambre 35 

At last the path went between two houses, and turned 
the party out into a wide muddy high-road, bordered, as 
far as the eye could reach on either hand, by an unsightly 
village. The houses stood well back, leaving a ribbon 
of waste land on either side of the road, where there were 5 
stacks of firewood, carts, barrows, rubbish heaps, and a 
little doubtful grass. Away on the left, a gaunt tower 
stood in the middle of the street. What it had been in 
past ages, I know not : probably a hold in time of war ; 
but novv-a-days it bore an illegible dial-plate in its upper 10 
parts, and near the bottom an iron letter-box. 

The inn to which we had been recommended at 
Quartes was full, or else the landlady did not like our 
looks. I ought to say, that with our long, damp india- 
rubber bags, we presented rather a doubtful type of civili- 15 
zation : like rag-and-bone men, the Cigarette imagined. 
"These gentlemen are pedlars?" — Ces messieurs sont 
des marchands? — asked the landlady. And then, with- 
out waiting for an answer, which I suppose she thought 
superfluous in so plain a case, recommended us to a 20 
butcher who lived hard by the tower and took in travellers 
to lodge. 

Thither went we. But the butcher was flitting,^ and all 
his beds were taken down. Or else he didn't like our look. 
As a parting shot, we had " These gentlemen are pedlars ? " 25 

It began to grow dark in earnest. We could no longer 
distinguish the faces of the people who passed us by with 
an inarticulate good evening. And the householders of 
1 Scotch for moving. 



^6 Inland Voyage 

Pont seemed very economical with their oil ; for we saw 
not a single window lighted in all that long village. I 
believe it is the longest village in the world ; but I dare- 
say in our predicament every pace counted three times 

5 over. We were much cast down when we came to the 
last auberge; and looking in at the dark door, asked tim- 
idly if we could sleep there for the night. A female 
voice assented in no very friendly tones. We clapped 
the bags down and found our way to chairs. 

lo The place was in total darkness, save a red glow in the 
chinks and ventilators of the stove. But now the land- 
lady lit a lamp to see her new guests ; I suppose the 
darkness was what saved us another expulsion ; for I can- 
not say she looked gratified at our appearance. We were 

15 in a large bare apartment, adorned with two allegorical 
prints of Music and Painting, and a copy of the Law 
against Public Drunkenness. On one side, there was a 
bit of a bar, with some half-a-dozen bottles. Two 
labourers sat waiting supper, in attitudes of extreme 

20 weariness ; a plain-looking lass bustled about with a sleepy 
child or two ; and the landlady began to derange the pots 
upon the stove and set some beef-steak to grill. 

"These gentlemen are pedlars?" she asked sharply. 
And that was all the conversation forthcoming. We be- 

25 gan to think we might be pedlars after all. I never knew 
a population with so narrow a range of conjecture as the 
innkeepers of Pont-sur-Sambre. But manners and bear- 
ing have not a wider currency than bank-notes. You have 
only to get far enough out of your beat, and all your accom- 



Pont-sur-Sambre 37 

plished airs will go for nothing. These Hainaulters could 
see no difference between us and the average pedlar. In- 
deed we had some grounds for reflection, while the steak 
was getting ready, to see how perfectly they accepted us 
at their own valuation, and how our best politeness and 5 
best efforts at entertainment seemed to fit quite suitably 
with the character of packmen. At least it seemed a good 
account of the profession in France, that even before 
such judges, we could not beat them at our own weapons. 

At last we were called to table. The two hinds (and 10 
one of them looked sadly worn and white in the face, as 
though sick with overwork and underfeeding) supped off 
a single plate of some sort of bread-berry, some potatoes 
in their jackets, a small cup of coffee sweetened with 
sugar candy, and one tumbler of swipes. The landlady, 15 
her son, and the lass aforesaid, took the same. Our meal 
was quite a banquet by comparison. We had some beef- 
steak, not so tender as it might have been, some of the 
potatoes, some cheese, an extra glass of the swipes, and 
white sugar in our coffee. 20 

You see what it is to be a gentleman — I beg your 
pardon, what it is to be a pedlar. It had not before 
occurred to me that a pedlar was a great man in a labourer's 
ale-house ; but now that I had to enact the part for an even- 
ing, I found that so it was. He has in his hedge quarters, 25 
somewhat the same pre-eminency as the man who takes 
a private parlour in a hotel. The more you look into it, 
the more infinite are the class distinctions among men ; 
and possibly, by a happy dispensation, there is no one at 



3 8 Inland Voyage 

all at the bottom of the scale ; no one but can find some su- 
periority over somebody else, to keep up his pride withal. 
We were displeased enough with our fare. Particularly 
the Cigarette ; for I tried to make believe that I was 

5 amused with the adventure, tough beef-steak and all. 
According to the Lucretian maxim, our steak should have 
been flavoured by the look of the other people's bread- 
berry. But we did not find it so in practice. You may 
have a head knowledge that other people live more poorly 

lo than yourself, but it is not agreeable — I was going to 
say, it is against the etiquette of the universe — to sit at 
the same table and pick your own superior diet from among 
their crusts. I had not seen such a thing done since 
the greedy boy at school with his birthday cake. It was 

15 odious enough to witness, I could remember; and I had 
never thought to play the part myself. But there again 
you see what it is to be a pedlar. 

There is no doubt that the poorer classes in our country 
are much more charitably disposed than their superiors in 

20 wealth. And I fancy it must arise a great deal from the 
comparative indistinction of the easy and the not so easy 
in these ranks. A workman or a pedlar cannot shutter 
himself off from his less comfortable neighbours. If he 
treats himself to a luxury, he must do it in the face of a 

25 dozen who cannot. And what should more directly lead 
to charitable thoughts? . . . Thus the poor man, camp- 
ing out in life, sees it as it is, and knows that every 
mouthful he puts in his belly has been wrenched out of 
the fingers of the hungry. 



Pont-sur-Sambre 39 

But at a certain stage of prosperity, as in a balloon ascent, 
the fortunate person passes through a zone of clouds, and 
sublunary matters are thenceforward hidden from his 
view. He sees nothing but the heavenly bodies, all in 
admirable order and positively as good as new. He finds 5 
himself surrounded in the most touching manner by the 
attentions of Providence, and compares himself involun- 
tarily with the lilies and the skylarks. He does not pre- 
cisely sing, of course ; but then he looks so unassuming 
in his open Landau ! If all the world dined at one 10 
table, this philosophy would meet with some rude knocks. 



PONT-SUR-SAMBRE 

The TR.A.VELLING Merchant 

Like the lackeys in Moliere's farce, when the true noble- 
man broke in on their high life below stairs, we were 
destined to be confronted with a real pedlar. To make 
the lesson still more poignant for fallen gentlemen like us, 15 
he was a pedlar of infinitely more consideration than the 
sort of scurvy fellows we were taken for : like a lion 
among mice, or ship of war bearing down upon two cock- 
boats. Indeed, he did not deserve the name of pedlar 
at all : he was a travelling merchant. 20 

I suppose it was about half- past eight when this worthy. 
Monsieur Hector Gilliard of Maubeuge, turned up at the 
ale-house door in a tilt-cart drawn by a donkey, and cried 
cheerily on the inhabitants. He was a lean, nervous 



40 Inland Voyage 

flibbertigibbet of a man, with something the look of an 
actor, and something the look of a horse-jockey. He had 
evidently prospered without any of the favours of edu- 
cation ; for he adhered with stern simplicity to the mas- 

5 culine gender, and in the course of the evening passed off 
some fancy futures in a very florid style of architecture. 
With him came his wife, a comely young woman with her 
hair tied in a yellow kerchief, and their son, a little fellow 
of four, in a blouse and military kepi. It was notable that 

lo the child was many degrees better dressed than either of 
the parents. We were informed he was already at a board- 
ing-school ; but the holidays having just commenced, 
he was off to spend them with his parents on a cruise. 
An enchanting holiday occupation, was it not ? to travel 

IS all day with father and mother in the tilt-cart full of count- 
less treasures; the green country rattUng by on either 
side, and the children in all the villages contemplating 
him with envy and wonder? It is better fun, during the 
holidays, to be the son of a travelling merchant, than son 

20 and heir to the greatest cotton-spinner in creation. And 
as for being a reigning prince — indeed I never saw one 
if it was not Master Gilliard ! 

While M. Hector and the son of the house were putting 
up the donkey, and getting all the valuables under lock 

25 and key, the landlady warmed up the remains of our beef- 
steak, and fried the cold potatoes in slices, and Madame 
Gilliard set herself to waken the boy, who had come far 
that day, and was peevish and dazzled by the light. He was 
no sooner awake than he began to prepare himself for supper 



Pont-sur-Sambre 41 

by eating galette,^ unripe pears, and cold potatoes — with, 
so far as I could judge, positive benefit to his appetite. 

The landlady, fired with motherly emulation, awoke 
her own httle girl ; and the two children were confronted. 
Master Gilliard looked at her for a moment, very much 5 
as a dog looks at his own reflection in a mirror before he 
turns away. He was at that time absorbed in the galette. 
His mother seemed crestfallen that he should display so 
little inclination towards the other sex ; and expressed 
her disappointment with some candour and a very proper 10 
reference to the influence of years. 

Sure enough a time will come when he will pay more 
attention to the girls, and think a great deal less of his 
mother : let us hope she will like it as well as she seemed 
to fancy. But it is odd enough ; the very women who 15 
profess most contempt for mankind as a sex, seem to find 
even its ugliest particulars rather lively and high-minded 
in their own sons. 

The little girl looked longer and with more interest, 
probably because she was in her own house, while he was 20 
a traveller and accustomed to strange sights. And besides 
there was no galette in the case with her. 

All the time of supper, there was nothing spoken of but 
my young lord. The two parents were both absurdly fond 
of their child. Monsieur kept insisting on his sagacity : 25 
how he knew all the children at school by name ; and 
when this utterly failed on trial, how he was cautious and 
exact to a strange degree, and if asked anything, he would 
1 Broad thin cake. 



42 Inland Voyage 

sit and think — and think, and if he did not know it, " my 
faith, he wouldn't tell you at all — 771a foi, il ne vous le dira 
pasy Which is certainly a very high degree of caution. At 
intervals, M. Hector would appeal to his wife, with his mouth 
5 full of beef-steak, as to the little fellow's age at such or 
such a time when he had said or done something memo- 
rable ; and I noticed that Madame usually pooh-poohed 
these inquiries. She herself was not boastful in her vein ; 
but she never had her fill of caressing the child ; and she 

10 seemed to take a gentle pleasure in recalling all that was 
fortunate in his Httle existence. No schoolboy could 
have talked more, of the holidays which were just begin- 
ning and less of the black school-time which must inevi- 
tably follow after. She showed, with a pride perhaps 

IS partly mercantile in origin, his pockets preposterously 
swollen with tops and whistles and string. When she called 
at a house in the way of business, it appeared he kept her 
company ; and whenever a sale was made, received a sou 
out of the profit. Indeed they spoiled him vastly, these 

20 two good people. But they had an eye to his manners 

for all that, and reproved him for some little faults in 

breeding which occurred from time to time during supper. 

On the whole, I was not much hurt at being taken for 

a pedlar. I might think that I ate with greater delicacy, 

25 or that my mistakes in French belonged to a different 
order ; but it was plain that these distinctions would be 
thrown away upon the landlady and the two labourers. 
In all essential things, we and the GiUiards cut very much 
the same figure in the ale-house kitchen. M. Hector 



Pont-sur-Sambre 43 

was more at home, indeed, and took a higher tone 
with the world ; but that was exphcable on the ground 
of his driving a donkey-cart, while we poor bodies 
tramped afoot. I daresay, the rest of the company 
thought us dying with envy, though in no ill sense, to be 5 
as far up in the profession as the new arrival. 

And of one thing I am sure : that everyone thawed 
and became more humanized and conversable as soon as 
these innocent people appeared upon the scene. I would 
not very readily trust the travelling merchant with any 10 
extravagant sum of money ; but I am sure his heart was 
in the right place. In this mixed world, if you can find 
one or two sensible places in a man, above all, if you 
should find a whole family living together on such 
pleasant terms, you may surely be satisfied, and take the 15 
rest for granted ; or, what is a great deal better, boldly 
make up your mind that you can do perfectly well without 
the rest ; and that ten thousand bad traits cannot make 
a single good one any the less good. 

It was getting late. M. Hector lit a stable lantern and 20 
went off to his cart for some arrangements ; and my 
young gentleman proceeded to divest himself of the 
better part of his raiment, and play gymnastics on his 
mother's lap, and thence on to the floor, with accom- 
paniment of laughter. 25 

" Are you going to sleep alone ? " asked the servant lass. 

" There's httle fear of that," says Master GilHard. 

"You sleep alone at school," objected his mother. 
" Come, come, you must be a man." 



44 Inland Voyage 

But he protested that school was a different matter 
from the hoUdays ; that there were dormitories at school ; 
and silenced the discussion with kisses : his mother 
smihng, no one better pleased than she. 

5 There certainly was, as he phrased it, very little fear 
that he should sleep alone ; for there was but one bed 
for the trio. We, on our part, had firmly protested 
against one man's accommodation for two ; and we had 
a double-bedded pen in the loft of the house, furnished, 

lo beside the beds, with exactly three hat pegs and one 
table. There was not so much as a glass of water. But 
the window would open, by good fortune. 

Some time before I fell asleep the loft was full of the 
sound of mighty snoring : the GiUiards, and the labourers, 

15 and the people of the inn, all at it, I suppose, with one 
consent. The young moon outside shone very clearly over 
Pont-sur-Sambre, and down upon the ale-house where all 
we pedlars were abed. 



ON THE SAMBRE CANALIZED 

To Landrecies 

In the morning, when we came downstairs, the land- 
20 lady pointed out to us two pails of water behind the 
street-door. " Voild de Peaupourvous debarbouUler,''^ says 
she. And so there we made a shift to wash ourselves, while 
Madame Gilliard brushed the family boots on the outer 
door-step, and M. Hector, whistling cheerily, arranged 



i 



i 



On the Sambre Canalized 



45 



some small goods for the day's campaign in a portable 
chest of drawers, which formed a part of his baggage. 
Meanwhile the child was letting off Waterloo crackers all 
over the floor. 

I wonder, by-the-by, what they call Waterloo crackers 5 
in France ; perhaps Austerlitz crackers. There is a great 
deal in the point of view. Do you remember the French- 
man who, travelling by way of Southampton, was put 
down in Waterloo Station, and had to drive across Waterloo 
bridge ? He had a mind to go home again, it seems. 10 

Pont itself is on the river, but whereas it is ten minutes' 
walk from Quartes by dry land, it is six weary kilo- 
metres ^ by water. We left our bags at the inn, and walked 
to our canoes through the wet orchards unencumbered. 
Some of the children were there to see us off, but we 15 
were no longer the mysterious beings of the night before. 
A departure is much less romantic than an unexplained 
arrival in the golden evening. Although we might be 
greatly taken at a ghost's first appearance, we should 
behold him vanish with comparative equanimity. 20 

The good folk of the inn at Pont, when we called there 
for the bags, were overcome with marveUing. At sight 
of these two dainty httle boats, with a fluttering Union 
Jack on each, and all the varnish shining from the 
sponge, they began to perceive that they had entertained 25 
angels unawares. The landlady stood upon the bridge, 
probably lamenting she had charged so little ; the son 
ran to and fro, and called out the neighbours to enjoy the 
1 Nearly four miles. 



46 Inland Voyage 

sight ; and we paddled away from quite a crowd of wrapt 
observers. These gentlemen pedlars, indeed ! Now you 
see their quality too late. 

The whole day was showery, with occasional drench- 

5 ing plumps. We were soaked to the skin, then partially 
dried in the sun, then soaked once more. But there 
were some calm intervals, and one notably, when we 
were skirting the forest of Mormal, a sinister name to the 
ear, but a place most gratifying to sight and smell. It 

10 looked solemn along the river side, drooping its boughs 
into the water, and piling them up aloft into a wall of 
leaves. What is a forest but a city of nature's own, full 
of hardy and innocuous living things, where there is 
nothing dead and nothing made with the hands, but the 

15 citizens themselves are the houses and pubhc monu- 
ments? There is nothing so much alive, and yet so 
quiet, as a woodland; and a pair of people, swinging 
past in canoes, feel very small and bustling by compari- 
son. 

20 And surely of all smells in the world, the smell of 
many trees is the sweetest and most fortifying. The sea 
has a rude, pistolling sort of odour, that takes you in the 
nostrils like snuff, and carries with it a fine sentiment of 
open water and tall ships ; but the smell of a forest, 

25 which comes nearest to this in tonic quality, surpasses it 
by many degrees in the quality of softness. Again, the 
smell of the sea has little variety, but the smell of a 
forest is infinitely changeful ; it varies with the hour of 
the day not in strength merely, but in character ; and the 



On the Sambre Canalized 47 

different sorts of trees, as you go from one zone of the 
wood to another, seem to hve among different kinds of 
atmosphere. Usually the resin of the fir predominates. 
But some woods are more coquettish in their habits ; 
and the breath of the forest of Mormal, as it came aboard 5 
upon us that showery afternoon, was perfumed with 
nothing less delicate than sweet-briar. 

I wish our way had always lain among woods. Trees 
are the most civil society. An old oak that has been 
growing where he stands since before the Reformation, 10 
taller than many spires, more stately than the greater 
part of mountains, and yet a living thing, liable to 
sicknesses and dsath, like you and me : is not that in 
itself a speaking lesson in history? But acres on acres 
full of such patriarchs contiguously rooted, their green 15 
tops billowing in the wind, their stalwart younglings 
pushing up about their knees : a whole forest, healthy 
and beautiful, giving colour to the light, giving perfume 
to the air : what is this but the most imposing piece in 
nature's repertory? Heine wished to lie like Merhn under 20 
the oaks of BroceHande. I should not be satisfied with 
one tree ; but if the wood grew together like a banyan 
grove, I would be buried under the tap-root of the 
whole ; my parts should circulate from oak to oak ; and 
my consciousness should be diffused abroad in all the 25 
forest, and give a common heart to that assembly of 
green spires, so that it also might rejoice in its own 
loveliness and dignity. I think I feel a thousand 
squirrels leaping from bough to bough in my vast mau- 



48 Inland Voyage 

soleum ; and the birds and the winds merrily coursing 
over its uneven, leafy surface. 

Alas ! the forest of Mormal is only a little bit of a 
wood, and it was but for a little way that we skirted by 
5 its boundaries. And the rest of the time the rain kept 
coming in squirts and the wind in squalls, until one's 
heart grew weary of such fitful, scolding weather. It was 
odd how the showers began when we had to carry the 
boats over a lock, and must expose our legs. They al- 
io ways did. This is a sort of thing that readily begets a 
personal feehng against nature. There seems no reason 
why the shower should not come fiv^e minutes before or 
five minutes after, unless you suppose an intention to 
affront you. The Cigarette had a mackintosh which put 
15 him more or less above these contrarieties. But I had 
to bear the brunt uncovered. I began to remember that 
nature was a woman. My companion, in a rosier temper, 
listened with great satisfaction to my Jeremiads, and ironi- 
cally concurred. He instanced, as a cognate matter, the 
20 action of the tides, " Which," said he, " was altogether 
designed for the confusion of canoeists, except in so far 
as it was calculated to minister to a barren vanity on the 
part of the moon. " 

At the last lock, some little way out of Landrecies, I 
25 refused to go any further ; and sat in a drift of rain by 
the side of the bank, to have a reviving pipe. A vivacious 
old man, whom I take to have been the devil, drew near 
and questioned me about our journey. In the fulness of 
my heart, I laid bare our plans before him. He said, it 



On the Sambre Canalized 49 

was the silliest enterprise that ever he heard of. Why, 
did I not know, he asked me, that it was nothing but 
locks, locks, locks, the whole way ? not to mention that, 
at this season of the year, we should find the Oise quite 
dry ? " Get into a train, my little young man," said he, 5 
" and go you away home to your parents." I was so 
astounded at the man's malice, that I could only stare at 
him in silence. A tree would never have spoken to me 
hke this. At last, I got out with some words. We had 
come from Antwerp already, I told him, which was a 10 
good long way ; and we should do the rest in spite of 
him. Yes, I said, if there were no other reason, I would 
do it now, just because he had dared to say we could not. 
The pleasant old gentleman looked at me sneeringly, 
made an allusion to my canoe, and marched off, wagging 15 
his head. 

I was still inwardly fuming, when up came a pair of 
young fellows, who imagined I was the Cigarette's servant, 
on a comparison, I suppose, of my bare jersey with the 
other's mackintosh, and asked me many questions about 20 
my place and my master's character. I said he was a good 
enough fellow, but had this absurd voyage on the head. 
" O no, no," said one, "you must not say that ; it is 
not absurd ; it is very courageous of him." I beUeve 
these were a couple of angels sent to give me heart again. 25 
It was truly fortifying to reproduce all the old man's in- 
sinuations, as if they were original to me in my character 
of a malcontent footman, and have them brushed away 
like so many flies by these admirable young men. 



50 Inland Voyage 

When I recounted this affair to the Cigarette, " they 
must have a curious idea of how EngUsh servants behave," 
says he, dryly, "for you treated me like a brute beast at 
the lock." 
5 I was a good deal mortified ; but my temper had suf- 
fered, it is a fact. 

AT LANDRECIES 

At Landrecies the rain still fell and the wind still 
blew ; but we found a double-bedded room with plenty of 
furniture, real water-jugs with real water in them, and 

lo dinner : a real dinner, not innocent of real wine. After 
having been a pedlar for one night, and a butt for the 
elements during the whole of the next day, these com- 
fortable circumstances fell on my heart like sunshine. 
There was an English fruiterer at dinner, travelling with a 

IS Belgian fruiterer ; in the evening at the cafe, we watched 
our compatriot drop a good deal of money at corks ; and 
I don't know why, but this pleased us. 

It turned out we were to see more of Landrecies than 
we expected ; for the weather next day was simply bed- 

20 lamite. It is not the place one would have chosen for a 
day's rest ; for it consists almost entirely of fortifications. 
Within the ramparts, a few blocks of houses, a long row 
of barracks, and a church figure, with what countenance 
they may, as the town. There seems to be no trade \ 

25 and a shopkeeper, from whom I bought a sixpenny flint 
and steel, was so much affected, that he filled my pockets 
with spare flints into the bargain. The only public build- 



At Landrecies 51 

ings that had any interest for us, were the hotel and the 
cafe. But we visited the church. There lies Marshal 
Clarke. But as neither of us had ever heard of that military 
hero, we bore the associations of the spot with fortitude. 

In all garrison towns, guard-calls, and reveilles, and 5 
such like make a fine romantic interlude in civic business. 
Bugles, and drums, and fifes are of themselves most excel- 
lent things in nature ; and when they carry the mind to 
marching armies, and the picturesque vicissitudes of war, 
they stir up something proud in the heart. But in a 10 
shadow of a town like Landrecies, with little else moving, 
these points of war made a proportionate commotion. 
Indeed, they were the only things to remember. It was 
just the place to hear the round going by at night in the 
darkness, with the solid tramp of men marching, and the 15 
startling reverberations of the drum. It reminded you, 
that even this place was a point in the great warfaring 
system of Europe, and might on some future day be 
ringed about with cannon smoke and thunder, and make 
itself a name among strong towns. 20 

The drum, at any rate, from its martial voice and nota- 
ble physiological effect, nay even from its cumbrous and 
comical shape, stands alone among the instruments of 
noise. And if it be true, as I have heard it said, that 
drums are covered with asses' skin, what a picturesque 25 
irony is there in that ! As if this long-suffering animal's 
hide had not been sufficiently belaboured during life, 
now by Lyonnese costermongers,^ now by presumptuous 
1 Pedlars of fruit and vegetables. 



52 Inland Voyage 

Hebrew prophets, it must be stripped from his poor 
hinder quarters after death, stretched on a drum, and 
beaten night after night round the streets of every garri- 
son town in Europe. And up the heights of Alma and 

5 Spicheren, and wherever death has his red flag a-flying, 
and sounds his own potent tuck upon the cannons, there 
also must the drummer boy, hurrying with white face over 
fallen comrades, batter and bemaul this slip of skin from 
the loins of peaceable donkeys. 

lo Generally a man is never more uselessly employed than 
when he is at this trick of bastinadoing asses' hide. We 
know what effect it has in life, and how your dull ass will 
not mend his pace with beating. But in this state of 
mummy and melancholy survival of itself, when the hollow 

15 skin reverberates to the drummer's wrist, and each dub-a- 
dub goes direct to a man's heart, and puts madness there, 
and that disposition of the pulses which we, in our big way 
of talking, nickname Heroism : — is there not something 
in the nature of a revenge upon the donkey's persecutors? 

20 Of old, he might say, you drubbed me up hill and down 
dale, and I must endure ; but now that I am dead, those 
dull thwacks that were scarcely audible in country lanes, 
have become stirring music in front of the brigade ; and 
for every blow that you lay on my old great coat, you will 

25 see a comrade stumble and fall. 

Not long after the drums had passed the cafe, the Cig- 
arette and the Arethusa began to grow sleepy, and set 
out for the hotel which was only a door or two away. But 
although we had been somewhat indifferent to Landrecies, 



At Landrecles ^^ 

Landrecies had not been indifferent to us. All day, we 
learned, people had been running out between the squalls 
to visit our two boats. Hundreds of persons, so said re- 
port, although it fitted ill with our idea of the town — 
hundreds of persons had inspected them where they 5 
lay in a coal-shed. We were becoming Hons in Lan- 
drecies, who had been only pedlars the night before in 
Pont. 

And now, when we left the ca/e, we were pursued and 
overtaken at the hotel door by no less a person than the 10 
Juge de Paix ; a functionary, as far as I can make out, of 
the character of a Scotch Sheriff Substitute. He gave us 
his card and invited us to sup with hiui on the spot, very 
neatly, very gracefully, as Frenchmen can do these things. 
It was for the credit of Landrecies, said he ; and although 15 
we knew very well how Httle credit we could do the place, 
we must have been churlish fellows to refuse an invitation 
so poKtely introduced. 

The house of the Judge was close by ; it was a well- 
appointed bachelor's establishment, with a curious collec- 20 
tion of old brass warming-pans upon the walls. Some of 
these were most elaborately carved. It seemed a pictur- 
esque idea for a collector. You could not help thinking 
how many night-caps had wagged over these warming- 
pans in past generations ; what jests may have been made 25 
and kisses taken, while they were in service; and how 
often they had been uselessly paraded in the bed of death. 
If they could only speak, at what absurd, indecorous, and 
tragical scenes had they not been present! 



54 Inland Voyage 

The wine was excellent. When we made the Judge 
our comphments upon a bottle, " I do not give it you 
as my worst," said he. I wonder when Englishmen will 
learn these hospitable graces. They are worth learn- 
5 ing ; they set off life, and make ordinary moments orna- 
mental. 

There were two other Landrecienses present. One was 
the collector of something or other, I forget what ; the 
other, we were told, was the principal notary of the place. 

lo So it happened that we all five more or less followed the 
law. At this rate the talk was pretty certain to become 
technical. The Cigarette expounded the poor laws very 
magisterially. And a little later I found myself laying 
down the Scotch Law of Illegitimacy, of which I am 

15 glad to say I know nothing. The collector and the no- 
tary, who were both married men, accused the Judge, 
who was a bachelor, of having started the subject. He 
deprecated the charge, with a conscious, pleased air, just 
hke all the men I have ever seen, be they French or Eng- 

20 Hsh. How strange that we should all, in our unguarded 
moments, rather like to be thought a bit of a rogue with 
the women ! 

As the evening went on, the wine grew more to my 
taste ; the spirits proved better than the wine ; the com- 

25 pany was genial. This was the highest water mark of 
popular favour on the whole cruise. After all, being in a 
Judge's house, was there not something semi-official in 
the tribute? And so, remembering what a great country 
France is, we did full justice to our entertainment. 



Sambre and Oise Canal 55 

Landrecies had been a long while asleep before we re- 
turned to the hotel ; and the sentries on the ramparts 
were already looking for daybreak. 



SAMBRE AND OISE CANAL 

Canal-boats 

Next day we made a late start in the rain. The Judge 
politely escorted us to the end of the lock under an 5 
umbrella. We had now brought ourselves to a pitch of 
humility in the matter of weather not often attained ex- 
cept in the Scotch Highlands. A rag of blue sky or a 
glimpse of sunshine set our hearts singing ; and when the 
rain was not heavy, we counted the day almost fair. ' 10 

Long lines of barges lay one after another along the 
canal ; many of them looking mighty spruce and ship- 
shape in their jerkin of Archangel tar picked out with 
white and green. Some carried gay iron raihngs and 
quite a parterre of flower-pots. Children played on the 15 
decks, as heedless of the rain as if they had been brought 
up on Loch Carron side ; men fished over the gunwale, 
some of them under umbrellas ; women did their wash- 
ing ; and every barge boasted its mongrel cur by way of 
watch-dog. Each one barked furiously at the canoes, 20 
running alongside until he had got to the end of his own 
ship, and so passing on the word to the dog aboard the 
next. We must have seen something like a hundred of 
these embarkations in the course of that day's paddle, 



56 Inland Voyage 

ranged one after another like the houses in a street; 
and from not one of them were we disappointed of this 
accompaniment. It was Uke visiting a menagerie, the 
Cigarette remarked. 

5 These little cities by the canal side had a very odd 
effect upon the mind. They seemed, with their flower- 
pots and smoking chimneys, their washings and dinners, 
a rooted piece of nature in the scene ; and yet if only 
the canal below were to open, one junk after another 

10 would hoist sail or harness horses and swim away into all 
parts of France ; and the impromptu hamlet would 
separate, house by house, to the four winds. The chil- 
dren who played together to-day by the Sambre andOise 
Canal, each at his own father's threshold, when and where 

1 5 might they next meet ? 

For some time past the subject of barges had occupied 
a great deal of our talk, and we had projected an 
old age on the canals of Europe. It was to be the 
most leisurely of progresses, now on a swift river at the 

20 tail of a steam-boat, now waiting horses for days together 
on some inconsiderable junction. We should be seen 
pottering on deck in all the dignity of years, our white 
beards falling into our laps. We were ever to be busied 
among paint-pots ; so that there should be no white fresher, 

25 and no green more emerald than ours, in all the navy of 
the canals. There should be books in the cabin, and 
tobacco-jars, and some old Burgundy as red as a Novem- 
ber sunset and as odorous as a violet in April. There 
should be a flageolet whence the Cigarette, with cunning 



Sambre and Oise Canal 57 

touch, should draw melting music under the stars ; or 
perhaps, laying that aside, upraise his voice — somewhat 
thinner than of yore, and with here and there a quaver, 
or call it a natural grace note — in rich and solemn 
psalmody. 5 

All this simmering in my mind set me wishing to go 
aboard one of these ideal houses of lounging. I had 
plenty to choose from, as I coasted one after another, 
and the dogs bayed at me for a vagrant. At last I saw a 
nice old man and his wife looking at me with some interest, lo 
so I gave them good day and pulled up alongside. I 
began with a remark upon their dog, which had somewhat 
the look of a pointer; thence I sHd into a compHment 
on Madame's flowers, and thence into a word in praise 
of their way of life. i^ 

If you ventured on such an experiment in England you 
would get a slap in the face at once. The life would be 
shown to be a vile one, not without a side shot at your 
better fortune. Now, what I like so much in France is 
the clear unflinching recognition by everybody of his 20 
own luck. They all know on which side their bread is 
buttered, and take a pleasure in showing it to others, 
which is surely the better part of religion. And they 
scorn to make a poor mouth over their poverty, which 
I take to be the better part of manliness. I have heard 25 
a woman in quite a better position at home, with a good 
bit of money in hand, refer to her own child with a 
horrid whine as "a poor man's child." I would not say 
such a thing to the Duke of Westminster. And the 



58 Inland Voyage 

French are full of this spirit of independence. Perhaps 
it is the result of republican institutions, as they call 
them. Much more likely it is because there are so few 
people really poor, that the whiners are not enough to 
5 keep each other in countenance. 

The people on the barge were delighted to hear that 
I admired their state. They understood perfectly well, 
they told me, how Monsieur envied them. Without 
doubt Monsieur was rich ; and in that case he might 

10 make a canal-boat as pretty as a villa — joli conime un 

chateau. And with that they invited me on board their 

own water villa. They apologized for their cabin ; they 

had not been rich enough to make it as it ought to be. 

''The fire should have been here, at this side," ex- 

15 plained the husband. '' Then one might have a writing- 
table in the middle — books — and " (comprehensively) 
" all. It would be quite coquettish — ^a serait tout-a-fait 
coquets And he looked about him as though the im- 
provements were already made. It was plainly not the 

20 first time that he had thus beautified his cabin in imagina- 
tion ; and when next he makes a hit, I should expect to 
see the writing-table in the middle. 

Madame had three birds in a cage. They were no 
great thing, she explained. Fine birds were so dear. 

25 They had sought to get a HoUandais last winter in Rouen 
(Rouen ? thought I ; and is this whole mansion, with its 
dogs and birds and smoking chimneys, so far a traveller 
as that? and as homely an object among the cliffs and 
orchards of the Seine as on the green plains of Sambre?) 



Sambre and Oise Canal 59 

— they had sought to get a Hollandais last winter in 
Rouen ; but these cost fifteen francs a-piece — picture it 

— fifteen francs ! 

'^ Pour ten tout petit oise au — For quite a little bird," 
added the husband. 5 

As I continued to admire, the apologetics died away, 
and the good people began to brag of their barge, and 
their happy condition in hfe, as if they had been Emperor 
and Empress of the Indies. It was, in the Scotch phrase, 
a good hearing, and put me in good humour with the 10 
world. If people knew what an inspiriting thing it is to 
hear a man boasting, so long as he boasts of what he really 
has, I beheve they would do it more freely and with a 
better grace. 

They began to ask about our voyage. You should have 15 
seen how they sympathized. They seemed half ready to 
give up their barge and follow us. But these canaletti 2Xt. 
only gipsies semi-domesticated. The semi-domestication 
came out in rather a pretty form. Suddenly Madame's 
brow darkened. ^^ Cependant^' she began, and then 20 
stopped; and then began again by asking me if I were 
single? 

"Yes," said I. 

"And your friend who went by just now? " 

He also was unmarried. 25 

O then — all was well. She could not have wives 
left alone at home ; but since there were no wives in the 
question, we were doing the best we could. 

"To see about one in the world," said the husband, 



6o Inland Voyage 

" // n'y a que ^a — there is nothing else worth while. A 
man, look you, who sticks in his own village Hke a bear," 
he went on, " — very well, he sees nothing. And then 
death is the end of all. And he has seen nothing." 
5 Madame reminded her husband of an Englishman who 
had come up this canal in a steamer. 

" Perhaps Mr. Moens in the Ytene,''^ I suggested. 

"That's it," assented the husband. "He had his wife 
and family with him, and servants. He came ashore at 
TO all the locks and asked the name of the villages, whether 
from boatmen or lock-keepers ; and then he wrote, wrote 
them down. O he wrote enormously ! I suppose it was 
a wager." 

A wager was a common enough explanation for our own 
IS exploits, but it seemed an original reason for taking 
notes. 

THE OISE IN FLOOD 

Before nine next morning the two canoes were in- 
stalled on a light country cart at Etreux : and we were 
soon following them along the side of a pleasant valley 

20 full of hop-gardens and poplars. Agreeable villages lay 
here and there on the slope of the hill; notably, Tupigny, 
with the hop-poles hanging their garlands in the very 
street, and the houses clustered with grapes. There was 
a faint enthusiasm on our passage ; weavers put their 

25 heads to the windows ; children cried out in ecstasy at 
sight of the two "boaties" — barquettes : and bloused 



The Oise in Flood 6i 

pedestrians, who were acquainted with our charioteer, 
jested with him on the nature of his freight. 

We had a shower or two, but hght and flying. The 
air was clean and sweet among all these green fields and 
green things growing. There was not a touch of autumn 5 
in the weather. And when, at Vadencourt, we launched 
from a little lawn opposite a mill, the sun broke forth 
and set all the leaves shining in the valley of the Oise. 

The river was swollen with the long rains. From 
Vadencourt all the way to Origny, it ran with ever quick- 10 
ening speed, taking fresh heart at each mile, and racing 
as though it already smelt the sea. The water was yellow 
and turbulent, swung with an angry eddy among half-sub- 
merged willows, and made an angry clatter along stony 
shores. The course kept turning and turning in a nar-15 
row and well-timbered valley. Now, the river would 
approach the side, and run gliding along the chalky base 
of the hill, and show us a few open colza fields among 
the trees. Now, it would skirt the garden-walls of houses, 
where we might catch a glimpse through a doorway, and 20 
see a priest pacing in the chequered sunlight. Again, the 
foliage closed so thickly in front, that there seemed to be 
no issue ; only a thicket of willows, overtopped by elms 
and poplars, under which the river ran flush and fleet, 
and where a kingfisher flew past like a piece of the blue 25 
sky. On these difl'erent manifestations, the sun poured 
its clear and catholic looks. The shadows lay as solid on 
the swift surface of the stream as on the stable meadows. 
The light sparkled golden in the dancing poplar leaves. 



62 Inland Voyage 

and brought the hills into communion with our eyes. 
And all the while the river never stopped running or took 
breath ; and the reeds along the whole valley stood 
shivering from top to toe. 
5 There should be some myth (but if there is, I know it 
not) founded on the shivering of the reeds. There are 
not many things in nature more striking to man's eye. It 
is such an eloquent pantomime of terror ; and to see such 
a number of terrified creatures taking sanctuary in every 

lo nook along the shore, is enough to infect a silly human 
with alarm. Perhaps they are only a- cold, and no won- 
der, standing waist deep in the stream. Or perhaps they 
have never got accustomed to the speed and fury of the 
river's flux, or the miracle of its continuous body. Pan 

15 once played upon their forefathers ; and so, by the hands 
of his river, he still plays upon these later generations 
down all the valley of the Oise ; and plays the same air, 
both sweet and shrill, to tell us of the beauty and the 
terror of the world. 

20 The canoe was like a leaf in the current. It took it up 
and shook it, and carried it masterfully away, like a Cen- 
taur carrying off a nymph. To keep some command on our 
direction required hard and diligent plying of the paddle. 
The river was in such a hurry for the sea ! Every drop 

25 of water ran in a panic, like as many people in a fright- 
ened crowd. But what crowd was ever so numerous, or 
so single-minded? All the objects of sight went by at a 
dance measure ; the eyesight raced with the racing river ; 
the exigencies of every moment kept the pegs screwed so 



The Oise in Flood 6^ 

tight, that our being quivered like a well- tuned instru- 
ment ; and the blood shook off its lethargy, and trotted 
through all the highways and by-ways of the veins and 
arteries, and in and out of the heart, as if circulation were 
but a holiday journey, and not the daily moil of three- 5 
score years and ten. The reeds might nod their heads 
in warning, and with tremulous gestures tell how the 
river was as cruel as it was strong and cold, and how 
death lurked in the eddy underneath the willows. But 
the reeds had to stand where they were ; and those who 10 
stand still are always timid advisers. As for us, we could 
have shouted aloud. If this lively and beautiful river 
were, indeed, a thing of death's contrivance, the old 
ashen rogue had famously outwitted himself with us. I 
was living three to the minute. I was scoring points 15 
against him every stroke of my paddle, every turn of the 
stream. I have rarely had better profit of my life. 

For I think we may look upon our httle private war 
with death somewhat in this light. If a man knows he 
will sooner or later be robbed upon a journey, he will 20 
have a bottle of the best in every inn, and look upon all 
his extravagances as so much gained upon the thieves. ' 
And above all, where instead of simply spending, he makes 
a profitable investment for some of his money, when it 
will be out of risk of loss. So every bit of brisk living, 25 
and above all when it is healthful, is just so much gained 
upon the wholesale filcher, death. We shall have the less 
in our pockets, the more in our stomach, when he cries 
stand and deliver. A swift stream is a favourite artifice 



64 Inland Voyage 

of his, and one that brings him in a comfortable thing 
per annum ; but when he and I come to settle our ac- 
counts, I shall whistle in his face for these hours upon the 
upper Oise. 
5 Towards afternoon we got fairly drunken with the sun- 
shine and exhilaration of the pace. We could no longer 
contain ourselves and our content. The canoes were too 
small for us ; we must be out arid stretch ourselves on 
shore. And so in a green meadow we bestowed our limbs 

10 on the grass, and smoked deifying tobacco and proclaimed 
the world excellent. It was the last good hour of the day, 
and I dwell upon it with extreme complacency. 

On one side of the valley, high upon the chalky summit 
of the hill, a ploughman with his team appeared and dis- 

15 appeared at regular intervals. At each revelation he 
stood still for a few seconds against the sky : for all the 
world (as the Cigarette declared) like a toy Burns who 
had just ploughed up the Mountain Daisy. He was the 
only living thing within view, unless we are to count the 

20 river. 

On the other side of the valley a group of red roofs and 
a belfry showed among the foHage. Thence some inspired 
bell-ringer made the afternoon musical on a chime of bells. 
There was something very sweet and taking in the air he 

25 played ; and we thought we had never heard bells speak so 
intelligibly, or sing so melodiously, as these. It must have 
been to some such measure that the spinners and the young 
maids sang, " Come away. Death," in the Shakespearian 
lUyria. There is so often a threatening note, something 



The Olse in Flood 6^ 

r 
blatant and metallic, in the voice of bells, that I believe 
we have fully more pain than pleasure from hearing them ; 
but these, as they sounded abroad, now high, now low, 
now with a plaintive cadence that caught the ear like the 
burthen of a popular song, were always moderate and tun- 5 
able, and seemed to fall in with the spirit of still, rustic 
places, Hke the noise of a waterfall or the babble of a 
rookery in spring. I could have asked the bell-ringer for 
his blessing, good, sedate old man, who swung the rope 
so gently to the time of his meditations. I could have 10 
blessed the priest or the heritors,^ or whoever may be con- 
cerned with such affairs in France, who had left these 
sweet old bells to gladden the afternoon, and not held 
meetings, and made collections, and had their names re- 
peatedly printed in the local paper, to rig up a peal of 15 
brand-new, brazen, Birmingham-hearted substitutes, who 
should bombard their sides to the provocation of a brand- 
new bell-ringer, and fill the echoes of the valley with terror 
and riot. 

At last the bells ceased, and with their note the sun 20 
withdrew. The piece was at an end ; shadow and silence 
possessed the valley of the Oise. We took to the paddle 
with glad hearts, like people who have sat out a noble 
performance, and return to work. The river was more 
dangerous here ; it ran swifter, the eddies were more 25 
sudden and violent. All the way down we had had our 
fill of difficulties. Sometimes it was a weir- which could 

^ Proprietors or land owners in Scotland. 

2 A dam for holding back the water in a river. 



66 Inland Voyage 

be shot, sometimes one so shallow and full of stakes that 
we must withdraw the boats from the watej and carry 
them round. But the chief sort of obstacle was a con- 
sequence of the late high winds. Every two or three 
5 hundred yards a tree had fallen across the river and 
usually involved more than another in its fall. Often 
there was free water at the end, and we could steer 
round the leafy promontory and hear the water sucking 
and bubbling among the twigs. Often, again, when the 

lotree reached from bank to bank, there was room, by 
lying close, to shoot through underneath, canoe and all. 
Sometimes it was necessary to get out upon the trunk 
itself and pull the boats across ; and sometimes, where 
the stream was too impetuous for this, there was nothing 

15 for it but to land and "carry over." This made a fine 
series of accidents in the day's career, and kept us aware 
of ourselves. 

Shortly after our re-embarkation, while I was leading 
by a long way, and still full of a noble, exulting spirit in 

20 honour of the sun, the swift pace, and the church bells, 
the river made one of its leonine pounces round a corner, 
and I was aware of another fallen tree within a stone-cast. 
I had my back-board down in a trice, and aimed for a 
place where the trunk seemed high enough above the 

25 water, and the branches not too thick to let me sHp 
below. When a man has just vowed eternal brotherhood 
with the universe, he is not in a temper to take great 
determinations coolly, and this, which might have been a 
very important determination for me, had not been taken 



The Oise in Flood 67 

under a happy star. The tree caught me about the 
chest, and while I was yet strugghng to make less of 
myself and get through, the river took the matter out of 
my hands, and bereaved me of my boat. The AretJmsa 
swung round broadside on, leaned over, ejected so much 5 
of me as still remained on board, and thus disencumbered, 
whipped under the tree, righted, and went merrily away 
down stream. 

I do not know how long it was before I scrambled on 
to the tree to which I was left cHnging, but it was longer 10 
than I cared about. My thoughts were of a grave and 
almost sombre character, but I still clung to my paddle. 
The stream ran away with my heels as fast as I could pull 
up my shoulders, and I seemed, by the weight, to have 
all the water of the Oise in my trousers pockets. You 15 
can never know, till you try it, what a dead pull a river 
makes against a man. Death himself had me by the 
heels, for this was his last ambuscado, and he must now 
join personally in the fray. And still I held to my 
paddle. At last I dragged myself on to my stomach on 20 
the trunk, and lay there a breathless sop, with a mingled 
sense of humour and injustice. A poor figure I must 
have presented to Burns upon the hill-top with his team. 
But there was the paddle in my hand. On my tomb, if 
ever I have one, I mean to get these words inscribed : 25 
*' He clung to his paddle." 

The Cigarette had gone past awhile before ; for, as I 
might have observed, if I had been a little less pleased 
with the universe at the moment, there was a clear way 



68 Inland Voyage 

round the tree-top at the farther side. He had offered 
his services to haul me out, but as I was then already on 
my elbows, I had declined, and sent him down stream 
after the truant Arethusa. The stream was too rapid for 

5 a man to mount with one canoe, let alone two, upon his 
hands. So I crawled along the trunk to shore, and pro- 
ceeded down the meadows by the river side. I was so 
cold that my heart was sore. I had now an idea of my 
own, why the reeds so bitterly shivered. I could have 

lo given any of them a lesson. The Cigarette remarked 
facetiously, that he thought I was " taking exercise " as 
I drew near, until he made out for certain that I was 
only twittering with cold. I had a rub-down with a 
towel, and donned a dry suit from the india-rubber bag. 

IS But I was not my own man again for the rest of the voyage. 
I "had a queasy sense that I wore my last dry clothes 
upon my body. The struggle had tired me ; and perhaps, 
whether I knew it or not, I was a little dashed in spirit. 
The devouring element in the universe had leaped out 

20 against me, in this green valley quickened by a running 
stream. The bells were all very pretty in their way, but 
I had heard some of the hollow notes of Pan's music. 
Would the wicked river drag me down by the heels, 
indeed? and look so beautiful all the time? Nature's 

25 good-humour was only skin-deep after all. 

There was still a long way to go by the winding course 
of the stream, and darkness had fallen, and a late bell 
was ringing in Origny Sainte-Benoite, when we arrived. 



Origny Sainte-Benoite 69 



ORIGNY SAINTE-BENOITE 
A By-day 

The next day was Sunday, and the church bells had 
little rest ; indeed I do not think I remember anywhere 
else so great a choice of services as were here offered to 
the devout. And while the bells made merry in the sun- 
shine, all the world with his dog was out shooting among 5 
the beets and colza. 

In the morning a hawker and his wife went down the 
street at a foot-pace, singing to a very slow, lamentable 
music, " O France, mes amours^ It brought everybody 
to the door ; and when our landlady called in the man to 10 
buy the words, he had not a copy of them left. She was 
not the first nor the second who had been taken with the 
song. There is something very pathetic in the love of the 
French people, since the war, for dismal patriotic music- 
making. I have watched a forester from Alsace while 15 
some one was singing '' Les malheurs de la France^^'' at a 
baptismal party in the neighbourhood of Fontainebleau. 
He arose from the table and took his son aside, close by 
where I was standing. " Listen, Hsten," he said, bearing 
on the boy's shoulder, " and remember this, my son." 20 
A little after he went out into the garden suddenly, and 
I could hear him sobbing in the darkness. 

The humiliation of their arms and the loss of Alsace 
and Lorraine made a sore pull on the endurance of this 



70 Inland Voyage 

sensitive people ; and their hearts are still hot, not so 
much against Germany as against the Empire. In what 
other country will you find a patriotic ditty bring all the 
world into the street? But affliction heightens love; 
5 and we shall never know we are Englishmen until we 
have lost India. Independent America is still the cross 
of my existence ; I cannot think of Farmer George with- 
out abhorrence ; and I never feel more warmly to my 
own land than when I see the stars and stripes, and re- 

lo member what our empire might have been. 

The hawker's little book, which I purchased, was a 
curious mixture. Side by side with the flippant, rowdy 
nonsense of the Paris music-halls, there were many pas- 
toral pieces, not without a touch of poetry, I thought, 

15 and instinct with the brave independence of the poorer 
class in France. There you might read how the wood- 
cutter gloried in his ax, and the gardener scorned to be 
ashamed of his spade. It was not very well written, this 
poetry of labour, but the pluck of the sentiment redeemed 

20 what was weak or wordy in the expression. The martial 
and the patriotic pieces, on the other hand, were tearful, 
womanish productions one and all. The poet had passed 
under the Caudine Forks ; he sang for an army visiting 
the tomb of its old renown, with arms reversed ; and sang 

2S not of victory, but of death. There was a number in the 
hawker's collection called Conso'its Fran^ais, which may 
rank among the most dissuasive war-lyrics on record. It 
would not be possible to fight at all in such a spirit. The 
bravest conscript would turn pale if such a ditty were 



Origny Sainte-Benoite 71 

struck up beside him on the morning of battle ; and 
whole regiments would pile their arms to its tune. 

If Fletcher of Saltoun is in the right about the influ- 
ence of national songs, you would say France was come 
to a poor pass. But the thing will work its own cure, 5 
and a sound-hearted and courageous people weary at 
length of snivelling over their disasters. Already Paul 
Deroulede has written some manly mihtary verses. There 
is not much of the trumpet note in them, perhaps, to stir 
a man's heart in his bosom ; they lack the lyrical elation, 10 
and move slowly ; but they are written in a grave honour- 
able, stoical spirit, which should carry soldiers far in a 
good cause. One feels as if one would like to trust 
Deroulede with something. It will be happy if he can so 
far inoculate his fellow-countrymen that they may be 15 
trusted with their own future. And in the meantime, here 
is an antidote to " French Conscripts " and much other 
doleful versification. 

We had left the boats overnight in the custody of one 
whom we shall call Carnival. I did not properly catch 20 
his name, and perhaps that was not unfortunate for him, 
as I am not in a position to hand him down with honour 
to posterity. To this person's premises we strolled in 
the course of the day, and found quite a little deputation 
inspecting the canoes. There was a stout gentleman with 25 
a knowledge of the river, which he seemed eager to im- 
part. There was a very elegant young gentleman in a 
black coat, with a smattering of English, who led the talk 
at once to the Oxford and Cambridge boat-race. And 



72 Inland Voyage 

then there were three handsome girls from fifteen to 
twenty ; and an old gentleman in a blouse, with no teeth 
to speak of, and a strong country accent. Quite the pick 
of Origny, I should suppose. 
5 The Cigarette had some mysteries to perform with his 
rigging in the coach-house ; so I was left to do the parade 
single-handed. I found myself very much of a hero 
whether I would or not. The girls were full of little shud- 
derings over the dangers of our journey. And I thought 
lo it would be ungallant not to take my cue from the ladies. 
My mishap of yesterday, told in an off-hand way, pro- 
duced a deep sensation. It was Othello over again, with 
no less than three Desdemonas and a sprinkling of sym- 
pathetic senators in the background. Never were the 
15 canoes more flattered, or flattered more adroitly. 

"It is like a viohn," cried one of the girls in an ecstasy. 

" I thank you for the word, mademoiselle," said I. 
" AU the more since there are people who caU out to me, 
that it is like a coffin." 
20 " O ! but it is really like a violin. It is finished like a 
violin," she went on. 

" And polished like a viohn," added a senator. 

" One has only to stretch the cords," concluded an- 
other, " and then tum-tumty-tum " — he imitated the re- 
25 suit with spirit. 

Was not this a graceful little ovation? Where this 
people finds the secret of its pretty speeches, I cannot 
imagine ; unless the secret should be no other than a 
sincere desire to please? But then no disgrace is at- 



Origny Sainte-Benoite 73 

tached in France to saying a thing neatly ; whereas in 
England, to talk like a book is to give in one's resignation 
to society. 

The old gentleman in the blouse stole into the coach- 
house, and somewhat irrelevantly informed the Cigarette 5 
that he was the father of the three girls and four more : 
quite an exploit for a Frenchman. 

" You are very fortunate," answered the Cigarette 
politely. 

And the old gentleman, having apparently gained his 10 
point, stole away again. 

We all got very friendly together. The girls proposed 
to start with us on the morrow, if you please ! And jest- 
ing apart, every one was anxious to know the hour of our 
departure. Now, when you are going to crawl into your 15 
canoe from a bad launch, a crowd, however friendly, is 
undesirable ; and so we told them not before twelve, and 
mentally determined to be off by ten at latest. 

Towards evening, we went abroad again to post some 
letters. It was cool and pleasant ; the long village was 20 
quite empty, except for one or two urchins who followed 
us as they might have followed a menagerie ; the hills 
and the tree-tops looked in from all sides through the 
clear air ; and the bells were chiming for yet another 
service. 25 

Suddenly, we sighted the three girls standing, with a 
fourth sister, in front of a shop on the wide selvage of the 
roadway. We had been very merry with them a little 
while ago, to be sure. But what was the etiquette of 



74 Inland Voyage 

Origny? Had it been a country road, of course we 
should have spoken to them ; but here, under the eyes 
of all the gossips, ought we to do even as much as bow? 
I 'consulted the Cigarette. 
5 " Look," said he. 

I looked. There were the four girls on the same spot ; 
but now four backs were turned to us, very upright and 
conscious. Corporal Modesty had given the word of 
command, and the well-disciplined picket had gone right- 

lo about-face like a single person. They maintained this 
formation all the while we were in sight ; but we heard 
them tittering among themselves, and the girl whom we 
had not met, laughed with open mouth, and even looked 
over her shoulder at the enemy. I wonder was it alto- 

15 gether modesty after all ? or in part a sort of country 
provocation ? 

As we were returning to the inn, we beheld something 
floating in the ample field of golden evening sky, above 
the chalk cliffs and the trees that grow along their summit. 

20 It was too high up, too large, and too steady for a kite ; 
and as it was dark, it could not be a star. For although 
a star were as black as ink and as rugged as a walnut, so 
amply does the sun bathe heaven with radiance, that it 
would sparkle like a point of light for us. The village 

25 was dotted with people with their heads in air ; and the 
children were in a bustle all along the street and far up 
the straight road that climbs the hill, where we could still 
see them running in loose knots. It was a balloon, we 
learned, which had left Saint Quentin at half-past five 



Origny Sainte-Benoite 75 

that evening. Mighty composedly the majority of the 
grown people took it. But we were English, and were 
soon running up the hill with the best. Being travellers 
ourselves in a small way, we would fain have seen these 
other travellers alight. 5 

The spectacle was over by the time we gained the top 
of the hill. All the gold had withered out of the sky, and 
the balloon had disappeared. Whither ? I ask myself ; 
caught up into the seventh heaven ? or come safely to 
land somewhere in that blue uneven distance, into which 10 
the roadway dipped and melted before our eyes? Prob- 
ably the aeronauts were already warming themselves at 
a farm chimney, for they say it is cold in these unhomely 
regions of the air. The night fell swiftly. Roadside 
trees and disappointed sightseers, returning through the 15 
meadows, stood out in black against a margin of low red 
sunset. It was cheerfuller to face the other way, and so 
down the hill we went, with a full moon, the colour of a 
melon, swinging high above the wooded valley, and the 
white cliffs behind us faintly reddened by the fire of the 20 
chalk kilns. 

The lamps were lighted, and the salads were being 
made in Origny Sainte-Benoite by the river. 



76 Inland Voyage 



ORIGNY SAINTE-BENOITE 

The Company at Table 

Although we came late for dinner, the company at 
table treated us to sparkling wine. " That is how we are 
in France," said one. " Those who sit down with us are 
our friends." And the rest applauded. 
5 They were three altogether, and an odd trio to pass 
the Sunday with. 

Two of them were guests like ourselves, both men of 
the north. One ruddy, and of a full habit of body, with 
copious black hair and beard, the intrepid hunter of 

10 France, who thought nothing so small, not even a lark or 
a minnow, but he might vindicate his prowess by its cap- 
ture. For such a great, healthy man, his hair flourishing 
Hke Samson's, his arteries running buckets of red blood, 
to boast of these infinitesimal exploits, produced a feel- 

15 ing of disproportion in the world, as when a steam- 
hammer is set to cracking nuts. The other was a quiet, 
subdued person, blond and lymphatic and sad, with 
something the look of a Dane : '^ Tristes tetes de Danois!'' 
as Gaston Lafenestre used to say. 

20 I must not let that name go by without a word for the 
best of all good fellows now gone down into the dust. 
We shall never again see Gaston in his forest costume — 
he was Gaston with all the world, in affection, not in dis- 
respect — nor hear him wake the echoes of Fontainebleau 



Origny Sainte-Benoite 77 

with the woodland horn. Never again shall his kind 
snnile put peace among all races of artistic men, and 
make the Englishman at home in France. Never more 
shall the sheep, who were not more innocent at heart 
than he, sit all unconsciously for his industrious pencil, s 
He died too early, at the very moment when he was 
beginning to put forth fresh sprouts, and blossom into 
something worthy of himself; and yet none who knew 
him will think he lived in vain. I never knew a man so 
little, for whom yet I had so much affection ; and I find 10 
it a good test of others, how much they had learned to 
understand and value him. His was indeed a good in- 
fluence in life while he was still among us; he had a 
fresh laugh, it did you good to see him ; and however 
sad he may have been at heart, he always bore a bold 15 
and cheerful countenance, and took fortune's worst as it 
were the showers of spring. But now his mother sits 
alone by the side of Fontainebleau woods, where he 
gathered mushrooms in his hardy and penurious youth. 

Many of his pictures found their way across the 20 
channel : besides those which were stolen, when a das- 
tardly Yankee left him alone in London with two English 
pence, and perhaps twice as many words of English. If 
anyone who reads these hues should have a scene of 
sheep, in the manner of Jacques, with this fine creature's 25 
signature, let him tell himself that one of the kindest and 
bravest of men has lent a hand to decorate his lodging. 
There may be better pictures in the National Gallery ; 
but not a painter among the generations had a better 



78 Inland Voyage 



heart. Precious in the sight of the Lord of humanity, 
the Psalms tell us, is the death of his saints. It had 
need to be precious ; for it is very costly, when by the 
stroke, a mother is left desolate, and the peacemaker, 
5 and peace-looker, of a whole society is laid in the ground 
with Caesar and the Twelve Apostles. 

There is something lacking among the oaks of Fon- 
tainebleau ; and when the dessert comes in at Barbizon, 
people look to the door for a figure that is gone. 

10 The third of our companions at Origny was no less a 
person than the landlady's husband : not properly the 
landlord, since he worked himself in a factory during the 
day, and came to his own house at evening as a guest : 
a man worn to skin and bone by perpetual excitement, 

15 with baldish head, sharp features, and swift, shining eyes. 
On Saturday, describing some paltry adventure at a 
duck-hunt, he broke a plate into a score of fragments. 
Whenever he made a remark, he would look all round 
the table, with his chin raised, and a spark of green light 

20 in either eye, seeking approval. His wife appeared now 
and again in the doorway of the room, where she was 
superintending dinner, with a "Henri, you forget your- 
self," or a "Henri, you can surely talk without making 
such a noise." Indeed, that was what the honest fellow 

25 could not do. On the most trifling matter, his eyes kin- 
dled, his fist visited the table, and his voice rolled abroad 
in changeful thunder. I never saw such a petard of a 
man ; I think the devil was in him. He had two favourite 
expressions : " it is logical," or illogical as the case might 



Origny Sainte-Benoite 79 

be : and this other, thrown out with a certain bravado, as 
a man might unfurl a banner, at the beginning of many 
a long and sonorous story : " I am a proletarian, you 
see." Indeed, we saw it very well. God forbid, that 
ever I should find him handling a gun in Paris streets. 5 
That will not be a good moment for the general 
public. 

I thought his two phrases very much represented the 
good and evil of his class, and to some extent of his 
country. It is a strong thing to say what one is, and not 10 
be ashamed of it ; even although it be in doubtful taste 
to repeat the statement too often in one evening. I should 
not admire it in a duke, of course ; but as times go, the 
trait is honourable in a workman. On the other hand, it 
is not at all a strong thing to put one's reliance upon logic ; 15 
and our own logic particularly, for it is generally wrong. 
We never know where we are to end, if once we begin 
following words or doctors. There is an upright stock in 
a man's own heart, that is trustier than any syllogism ; and 
the eyes, and the sympathies and appetites, know a thing 20 
or two that have never yet been stated in controversy. 
Reasons are as plentiful as blackberries; and like fisti- 
cuffs, they serve impartially with all sides. Doctrines do 
not stand or fall by their proofs, and are only logical in 
so far as they are cleverly put. An able controversialist 25 
no more than an able general demonstrates the justice of 
his cause. But France is all gone wandering after one 
or two big words ; it will take some time before they can 
be satisfied that they are no more than words, however 



8o Inland Voyage 

big ; and when once that is done, they will perhaps find 
logic less diverting. 

The conversation opened with details of the day's shoot- 
ing. When all the sportsmen of a village shoot over the 
5 village territory pro indiviso, it is plain that many ques- 
tions of etiquette and priority must arise. 

" Here now," cried the landlord, brandishing a plate, 
" here is a field of beet-root. Well. Here am I then. 
I advance, do I not? Eh bien ! sacristi^' and the state- 
lo ment, waxing louder, rolls off into a reverberation of oaths, 
the speaker glaring about for sympathy, and everybody 
nodding his head to him in the name of peace. 

The ruddy Northman told some tales of his own prow- 
ess in keeping order : notably one of a Marquis. 
15 "Marquis," I said, "if you take another step I fire 
upon you. You have committed a dirtiness. Marquis." 

Whereupon, it appeared, the Marquis touched his cap 
and withdrew. 

The landlord applauded noisily. " It was well done," 

20 he said. " He did all that he could. He admitted he 

was wrong." And then oath upon oath. He was no 

marquis-lover either, but he had a sense of justice in him, 

this proletarian host of ours. 

From the matter of hunting, the talk veered into a 
25 general comparison of Paris and the country. The pro- 
letarian beat the table like a drum in praise of Paris. 
" What is Paris ? Paris is the cream of France. There 
are no Parisians : it is you and I and everybody who are 
Parisians. A man has eighty chances per cent, to get on 



Origny Sainte-Benoite 8i 

in the world in Paris." And he drew a vivid sketch of 
the workman in a den no bigger than a dog-hutch, making 
articles that were to go all over the world. ^^ Eh bien, 
quoi, c'est magnifique^ ^^/" cried he. 

The sad Northman interfered in praise of a peasant's 5 
life ; he thought Paris bad for men and women ; " cen- 
tralization," said he — 

But the landlord was at his throat in a moment. It 
was all logical, he showed him; and all magnificent. 
" What a spectacle ! What a glance for an eye ! " And lo 
the dishes reeled upon the table under a cannonade of blows. 

Seeking to make peace, I threw in a word in praise of 
the liberty of opinion in France. I could hardly have 
shot more amiss. There was an instant silence, and a 
great wagging of significant heads. They did not fancy 15 
the subject, it was plain ; but they gave me to understand 
that the sad Northman was a martyr on account of his 
views. " Ask him a bit," said they. " Just ask him." 

" Yes, sir," said he in his quiet way, answering me, al- 
though I had not spoken, " I am afraid there is less liberty 20 
of opinion in France than you may imagine." And with 
that he dropped his eyes, and seemed to consider the 
subject at an end. 

Our curiosity was mightily excited at this. How, or 
why, or when, was this lymphatic bagman martyred? We 25 
concluded at once it was on some religious question, and 
brushed up our memories of the Inquisition, which were 
principally drawn from Poe's horrid story, and the sermon 
lyistrajn Shandy, I believe. 



82 Inland Voyage 

On the morrow we had an opportunity of going further 
into the question ; for when we rose very early to avoid a 
sympathizing deputation at our departure, we found the 
hero up before us. He was breaking his fast on white 

5 wine and raw onions, in order to keep up the character 
of martyr, I conclude. We had a long conversation, and 
made out what we wanted in spite of his reserve. But 
here was a truly curious circumstance. It seems possible 
for two Scotchmen and a Frenchman to discuss during a 

lolong half hour, and each nationahty have a* different idea 
in view throughout. It was not till the very end that we 
discovered his heresy had been political, or that he sus- 
pected our mistake. The terms and spirit in which he 
spoke of his political beliefs were, in our eyes, suited to 

1 5 religious beliefs. And vice versa. 

Nothing could be more characteristic of the two coun- 
tries. PoHtics are the religion of France ; as Nanty Ewart 
would have said, "A d — d bad religion;" while we, at 
home, keep most of our bitterness for little differences 

2o about a hymn-book, or a Hebrew word which, perhaps, 
neither of the parties can translate. And perhaps the 
misconception is typical of many others that may never 
be cleared up : not only between people of different race, 
but between those of different sex. 

25 As for our friend's martyrdom, he was a Communist, 
or perhaps only a Communard, which is a very different 
thing ; and had lost one or more situations in consequence. 
I think he had also been rejected in marriage ; but perhaps 
he had a sentimental way of considering business which 



Down the Oise : To Moy 83 

deceived me. He was a mild, gentle creature, anyway ; 
and I hope he has got a better situation, and married a 
more suitable wife since then. 

DOWN THE OISE : TO MOY 

Carnival notoriously cheated us at first. Finding us 
easy in our ways, he regretted having let us off so cheaply ; 5 
and taking me aside, told me a cock-and-bull story with 
the moral of another five francs for the narrator. The thing 
was palpably absurd ; but I paid up, and at once dropped 
all friendliness of manner, and kept him in his place as an 
inferior with freezing British dignity. He saw in a mo- 10 
ment that he had gone too far, and killed a willing horse ; 
his face fell; I am sure he would have refunded if he 
could only have thought of a decent pretext. He wished 
me to drink with him, but I would none of his drinks. He 
grew pathetically tender in his professions ; but I walked 15 
beside him in silence or answered him in stately courtesies ; 
and when we got to the landing-place, passed the word in 
English slang to the Cigarette. 

In spite of the false scent we had thrown out the day 
before, there must have been fifty people about the 20 
bridge. We were as pleasant as we could be with all but 
Carnival. We said good-bye, shaking hands with the 
old gentleman who knew the river and the young 
gentleman who had a smattering of English ; but never a 
word for Carnival. Poor Carnival, here was a humilia- 25 
tion. He who had been so much identified with the 



84 Inland Voyage 

canoes, who had given orders in our name, who 
had shown off the boats and even the boatmen 
hke a private exhibition of his own, to be now so 
pubhcly shamed by the Hons of his caravan ! I never 
5 saw anybody look ,more crestfallen than he. He hung 
in the background, coming timidly forward ever and 
again as he thought he saw some symptom of a relenting 
humour, and falling hurriedly back when he encountered 
a cold stare. Let us hope it will be a lesson to him. 

10 I would not have mentioned Carnival's peccadillo had 
not the thing been so uncommon in France. This, for 
instance, was the only case of dishonesty or even sharp 
practice in our whole voyage. We talk very much about 
our honesty in England. It is a good rule to be on your 

15 guard wherever you hear great professions about a very 
little piece of virtue. If the English could only hear how 
they are spoken of abroad, they might confine themselves 
for a while to remedying the fact ; and perhaps even 
when that was done, give us fewer of their airs. 

20 The young ladies, the graces of Origny, were not pres- 
ent at our start, but when we got round to the second 
bridge, behold it was black with sight-seers ! We were 
loudly cheered, and for a good way below, young lads and 
lasses ran along the bank still cheering. What with 

25 current and paddling, we were flashing along hke swal- 
lows. It was no joke to keep up with us upon the woody 
shore. But the girls picked up their skirts, as if they 
were sure they had good ankles, and followed until their 
breath was out. The last to weary were the three graces 



Down the Olse : To Moy 85 

and a couple of companions ; and just as they too had 
had enough, the foremost of the three leaped upon a tree 
stump and kissed her hand to the canoeists. Not Diana 
herself, although this was more of a Venus after all, could 
have done a graceful thing more gracefully. " Come back 5 
again ! " she cried ; and all the others echoed her ; and 
the hills about Origny repeated the words, "Come back." 
But the river had us round an angle in a twinkling, and 
we were alone with the green trees and running water. 

Come back? There is no coming back, young ladies, 10 
on the impetuous stream of life. 

The merchant bows unto the seaman's star, 
The ploughman from the sun his season takes. 

And we must all set our pocket watches by the clock of 
fate. There is a headlong, forthright tide, that bears 15 
away man with his fancies like a straw, and runs fast in 
time and space. It is full of curves like this, your wind- 
ing river of the Oise ; and lingers and returns in pleasant 
pastorals ; and yet, rightly thought upon, never returns at 
all. For though it should revisit the same acre of meadow 20 
in the same hour, it will have made an ample sweep 
between whiles ; many little streams will have fallen in ; 
many exhalations risen towards the sun ; and even al- 
though it were the same acre, it will no more be the same 
river of Oise. And thus, O graces of Origny, although 25 
the wandering fortune of my life should carry me back 
again to where you await death's whistle by the river. 



86 Inland Voyage 

that will not be the old I who walks the street ; and those 
wives and mothers, say, will those be you? 

There was never any mistake about the Oise, as a 
matter of fact. In these upper reaches it was still in a 
5 prodigious hurry for the sea. It ran so fast and merrily, 
through all the windings of its channel, that I strained my 
thumb, fighting with the rapids, and had to paddle all the 
rest of the way with one hand turned up. Sometimes, it 
had to serve mills ; and being still a little river, ran very 

lo dry and shallow in the meanwhile. We had to put our 
legs out of the boat, and shove ourselves off the sand of 
the bottom with our feet. And still it went on its way 
singing among the poplars, and making a green valley in 
the world. After a good woman, and a good book, and 

15 tobacco, there is nothing so agreeable on earth as a 
river. I forgave it its attempt on my life ; which' was after 
all one part owing to the unruly winds of heaven that had 
blown down the tree, one part to my own mismanage- 
ment, and only a third part to the river itself, and that, 

20 not out of malice, but from its great pre-occupation over 
its business of getting to the sea. A difficult business, 
too; for the detours it had to make are not to be 
counted. The geographers seem to have given up the 
attempt ; for I found no map represent the infinite con- 

25 tortion of its course. A fact will say more than any of 
them. After we had been some hours, three if I mistake 
not, flitting by the trees at this smooth, breakneck gallop, 
when we came upon a hamlet and asked where we were, 
we had got no farther than four kilometres (say two 



Down the Oise : To Moy 87 

miles and a half) from Origny. If it were not for the 
honour of the thing (in the Scotch saying), we might 
almost as well have been standing still. 

We lunched on a meadow inside a parallelogram of 
poplars. The leaves danced and prattled in the wind all 5 
round about us. The river hurried on meanwhile, and 
seemed to chide at our delay. Little we cared. The 
river knew where it was going ; not so we : the less our 
hurry, where we found good quarters and a pleasant 
theatre for a pipe. At that hour, stockbrokers were shout- 10 
ing in Paris Bourse for two or three per cent. ; but we 
minded them as little as the sliding stream, and sacrificed 
a hecatomb of minutes to the gods of tobacco and diges- 
tion. Hurry is the resource of the faithless. Where a 
man can trust his own heart, and those of his friends, to- 15 
morrow is as good as to-day. And if he die in the mean- 
while, why then, there he dies, and the question is solved. 

We had to take to the canal in the course of the after- 
noon ; because, where it crossed the river, there was, not 
a bridge, but a siphon. If it had not been for an excited 20 
fellow on the bank, we should have paddled right into 
the siphon, and thenceforward not paddled any more. 
We met a man, a gentleman, on the tow-path, who was 
much interested in our cruise. And I was witness to a 
strange seizure of lying suffered by the Cigarette: who, 25 
because his knife came from Norway, narrated all sorts of 
adventures in that country, where he has never been. 
He was quite feverish at the end, and pleaded demonia- 
cal possession. 



88 Inland Voyage 

Moy (pronounce Moy) was a pleasant little village, 
gathered round a chateau in a moat. The air was per- 
fumed with hemp from neighbouring fields. At the 
Golden Sheep, we found excellent entertainment. German 
5 shells from the siege of La Fere, Niirnberg figures, gold 
fish in a bowl, and all manner of knick-knacks, embel- 
lished the public room. The landlady was a stout, plain, 
short-sighted, motherly body, with something not far 
short of a genius for cookery. She had a guess of her 

lo excellence herself. After every dish was sent in, she 
would come and look on at the dinner for a while, with 
puckered, blinking eyes. ^' O est bo?i, ii'est-ce pas ?'^ shQ 
would say ; and when she had received a proper answer, 
she disappeared into the kitchen. That common French 

15 dish, partridge and cabbages, became a new thing in my 
eyes at the Golden Sheep ; and many subsequent dinners 
have bitterly disappointed me in consequence. Sweet 
was our rest in the Golden Sheep at Moy. 

LA FERE OF CURSED MEMORY 

We lingered in Moy a good part of the day, for we 
20 were fond of being philosophical, and scorned long jour- 
neys and early starts on principle. The place, moreover, 
invited to repose. People in elaborate shooting costumes 
sallied from the chateau with guns and game-bags ; and 
this was a pleasure in itself, to remain behind while these 
25 elegant pleasure-seekers took the first of the morning. 
In this way, all the world may be an aristocrat, and play 



La Fere of Cursed Memory 89 

the duke among marquises, and the reigning monarch 
among dukes, if he will only outvie them in tranquillity. 
An imperturbable demeanour comes from perfect pa- 
tience. Quiet minds cannot be perplexed or frightened, 
but go on in fortune or misfortune at their own private 5 
pace, hke a clock during a thunder-storm. 

We made a very short day of it to La F^re ; but the 
dusk was falling, and a small rain had begun before we 
stowed the boats. La Fere is a fortified town in a plain, 
and has two belts of rampart. Between the first and the 10 
second, extends a region of waste land and cultivated 
patches. Here and there along the wayside were posters 
forbidding trespass in the name of military engineering. 
At last, a second gateway admitted us to the town itself. 
Lighted windows looked gladsome, whiffs of comfortable 15 
cookery came abroad upon the air. The town was full 
of the military reserve, out for the French Autumn ma- 
noeuvres, and the reservists walked speedily and wore their 
formidable great-coats. It was a fine night to be within 
doors over dinner, and hear the rain upon the windows. 20 

The Cigarette and I could not sufficiently congratulate 
each other on the prospect, for we had been told there 
was a capital inn at La Fere. Such a dinner as we were 
going to eat ! such beds as we were to sleep in ! — and all 
the while the rain raining on houseless folk over all 25 
the poplared country-side ! It made our mouths water. 
The inn bore the name of some woodland animal, stag, 
or hart, or hind, I forget which. But I shall never forget 
how spacious and how eminenUy habitable it looked as 



go Inland Voyage 

we drew near. The carriage entry was lighted up, not 
by intention, but from the mere superfluity of fire and 
candle in the house. A rattle of many dishes came to 
our ears ; we sighted a great field of tablecloth ; the 
5 kitchen glowed hke a forge and smelt like a garden of 
things to eat. 

Into this, the inmost shrine, and physiological heart, of 
a hostelry, with all its furnaces in action, and all its 
dressers charged with viands, you are now to suppose us 

lo making our triumphal entry, a pair of damp rag-and-bone 
men, each with a limp india-rubber bag upon his arm. 
I do not beHeve I have a sound view of that kitchen ; I 
saw it through a sort of glory : but it seemed to me 
crowded with the snowy caps of cookmen, who all turned 

15 round from their saucepans and looked at us with surprise. 
There was no doubt about the landlady, however : there 
she was, heading her army, a flushed, angry woman, full 
of affairs. Her I asked politely — too politely, thinks the 
Cigarette — if we could have beds : she surveying us 

20 coldly from head to foot. 

*'You win find beds in the suburb," she remarked. 
"We are too busy for the like of you." 

If we could make an entrance, change our clothes, and 
order a bottle of wine, I felt sure we could put things 

25 right ; so said I : "If we cannot sleep, we may at least 
dine," — and was for depositing my bag. 

What a terrible convulsion of nature was that which 
followed in the landlady's face ! She made a run at us, 
and stamped her foot. 



La Fere of Cursed Memory 91 

"Out with you — out of the door!" she screeched. 
" Sortez ! sortez! soi-tez par la porte ! " 

I do not know how it happened, but next moment we 
were out in the rain and darkness, and I was cursing 
before the carriage entry Hke a disappointed mendicant. 5 
Where were the boating men of Belgium? where the 
Judge and his good wines? and where the graces of 
Origny? Black, black was the night after the firelit 
kitchen ; but what was that to the blackness in our hearts ? 
This was not the first time that I have been refused a 10 
lodging. Often and often have I planned what I should 
do if such a misadventure happened to me again. And 
nothing is easier to plan. But to put in execution, with 
the heart boiling at the indignity? Try it; try it only 
once; and tell me what you did. 15 

It is all very fine to talk about tramps and morality. 
Six hours of police surveillance (such as I have had), or 
one brutal rejection from an inn door, change your views 
upon the subject like a course of lectures. As long as 
you keep in the upper regions, with all the world bowing 20 
to you as you go, social arrangements have a very hand- 
some air ; but once get under the wheels, and you wish 
society were at the devil. I will give most respectable 
men a fortnight of such a life, and then I will offer them 
twopence for what remains of their morality. 25 

For my part, when I was turned out of the Stag^ or the 
Hind, or whatever it was, I would have set the temple of 
Diana on fire, if it had been handy. There was no 
crime complete enough to express my disapproval of 



92 Inland Voyage 

human institutions. As for the Cigarette, I never knew a 
man so altered. " We have been taken for pedlars again," 
said he. " Good God, what it must be to be a pedlar 
in reahty ! " He particularized a complaint for every joint 
5 in the landlady's body. Timon was a philanthropist along- 
side of him. And then, when he was at the top of his 
maledictory bent, he would suddenly break away and be- 
gin whimperingly to commiserate the poor. '' I hope to 
God," he said, — and I trust the prayer was answered, — 

lo " that I shall never be uncivil to a pedlar." Was this the 
imperturbable Cigarette? This, this was he. O change 
beyond report, thought, or belief ! 

Meantime the heaven wept upon our heads ; and the 
windows grew brighter as the night increased in darkness. 

15 We trudged in and out of La Fere streets ; we saw shops, 
and private houses where people were copiously dining ; 
we saw stables where carters' nags had plenty of fodder 
and clean straw ; we saw no end of reservists, who were 
very sorry for themselves this wet night, I doubt not, and 

20 yearned for their country homes ; but had they not each 
man his place in La Fere barracks ? And we, what had 
we? 

There seemed to be no other inn in the whole town. 
People gave us directions, which we followed as best we 

25 could, generally with the effect of bringing us out again 
upon the scene of our disgrace. We were very sad people 
indeed by the time we had gone all over La Fere ; and 
the Cigarette had already made up his mind to lie under 
a poplar and sup off a loaf of bread. But right at the 



La Fere of Cursed Memory 93 

other end, the house next the town gate was full of light 
and bustle. ^^ Bazin, aubergiste, loge a pied^^'' was the 
sign. "Jf la Croix de Malted There were we received. 

The room was full of noisy reservists drinking and smok- 
ing ; and we were very glad indeed when the drums and 5 
bugles began to go about the streets, and one and all had 
to snatch shakoes ^ and be off for the barracks. 

Bazin was a tall man, running to fat : soft-spoken, with 
a delicate, gentle face. We asked him to share our wine ; 
but he excused himself, having pledged reservists all day 10 
long. This was a very different type of the workman- 
innkeeper from the bawling disputatious fellow at Origny. 
He also loved Paris, where he had worked as a decora- 
tive painter in his youth. There were such opportunities 
for self-instruction there, he said. And if anyone has read 15 
Zola's description of the workman's marriage party visit- 
ing the Louvre, they would do well to have heard Bazin 
by way of antidote. He had delighted in the museums 
in his youth. " One sees there Httle miracles of work," 
he said ; " that is what makes a good workman ; it kindles 20 
a spark." We asked him how he managed in La Fere. " I 
am married," he said, ^' and I have my pretty children. 
But frankly, it is no life at all. From morning to night 
I pledge a pack of good enough fellows who know noth- 
ing." • 25 

It faired as the night went on, and the moon came out 
of the clouds. We sat in front of the door, talking softly 
with Bazin. At the guard -house opposite, the guard was 
1 Military caps. 



94 Inland Voyage 

being for ever turned out, as trains of field artillery kept 
clanking in out of the night, or patrols of horsemen 
trotted by in their cloaks. Madame Bazin came out 
after a while ; she was tired with her day's work, I sup- 

5 pose ; and she nestled up to her husband and laid her 
head upon his breast. He had his arm about her and 
kept gently patting her on the shoulder. I think Bazin 
was right, and he was really married. Of how few people 
can the same be said ! 

to Little did the Bazins know how much they served us. 
We were charged for candles, for food and drink, and for 
the beds we slept in. But there was nothing in the bill 
for the husband's pleasant talk ; nor for the pretty spec- 
tacle of their married life. And there was yet another 

■ S item uncharged. For these people's politeness really set 
us up again in our own esteem. We had a thirst for con- 
sideration ; the sense of insult was still hot in our spirits ; 
and civil usage seemed to restore us to our position in 
the world. 

!o How little we pay our way in life ! Although we have 
our purses continually in our hand the better part of 
service goes still unrewarded. But I like to fancy that a 
grateful spirit gives as good as it gets. Perhaps the 
Bazins knew how much I liked them? perhaps they also 

'■5 were healed of some slights by the thanks that I gave 
them in my manner? 



Down the Oise 95 



DOWN THE OISE 
Through the Golden Valley 

Below La Fere the river runs through a piece of open 
pastoral country ; green, opulent, loved by breeders ; 
called the Golden Valley. In wide sweeps, and with a 
swift and equable gallop, the ceaseless stream of water 
visits and makes green the fields. Kine, and horses, 5 
and little humorous donkeys browse together in the 
meadows, and come down in troops to the river side to 
drink. They make a strange feature in the landscape ; 
above all when startled, and you see them galloping to 
and fro, with their incongruous forms and faces. It gives 10 
a feehng as of great, unfenced pampas, and the herds of 
wandering nations. There were hills in the distance 
upon either hand ; and on one side the river sometimes 
bordered on the wooded spurs of Coucy and St. Gobain. 

The artillery were practising at La Fere ; and soon the 15 
cannon of heaven joined in that loud play. Two conti- 
nents of cloud met and exchanged salvos overhead ; while 
all round the horizon we could see sunshine and clear air 
upon the hills. What with the guns and the thunder, the 
herds were all frighted in the Golden Valley. We could 20 
isee them tossing their heads, and running to and fro in 
ftimorous indecision ; and when they had made up their 
[minds, and the donkey followed the horse, and the cow 
Iwas after the donkey, we could hear their hoofs thun- 
dering abroad over the meadows. It had a martial sound, 25 



g6 Inland Voyage 

like cavalry charges. And altogether, as far as the ears 
are concerned, we had a very rousing battle-piece per- 
formed for our amusement. 

At last the guns and the thunder dropped off; the sun 
5 shone on the wet meadows ; the air was scented with the 
breath of rejoicing trees and grass ; and the river kept 
unweariedly carrying us on at its best pace. There was a 
manufacturing district about Chauny ; and after that the 
banks grew so high that they hid the adjacent country, 

lo and we could see nothing but clay sides, and one willow 
after another. Only, here and there, we passed by a vil- 
lage or a ferry, and some wondering child upon the bank 
would stare after us until we turned the corner. I dare- 
say we continued to paddle in that child's dreams for many 

IS a night after. 

Sun and shower alternated like day and night, making 
the hours longer by their variety. When the showers 
were heavy I could feel each drop striking through my 
jersey to my warm skin ; and the accumulation of small 

20 shocks put me nearly beside myself. I decided I should 
buy a mackintosh at Noyon. It is nothing to get wet ; 
but the misery of these individual pricks of cold all over 
my body at the same instant of time, made me flail the 
water with my paddle like a madman. The Cigarette 

25 was greatly amused by these ebulUtions. It gave him 

something else to look at, besides clay banks and willows. 

All the time, the river stole away like a thief in straight 

places, or swung round corners with an eddy ; the willows 

nodded and were undermined all day long; the clay 



Noyon Cathedral 97 

banks tumbled in ; the Oise, which had been so many 
centuries making the Golden Valley, seemed to have 
changed its fancy, and be bent upon undoing its perform- 
ance. What a number of things a river does, by simply 
following Gravity in the innocence of its heart ! 5 

NOYON CATHEDRAL 

Noyon stands about a mile from the river, in a little 
plain surrounded by wooded hills, and entirely covers an 
eminence with its tile roofs, surmounted by a long, straight- 
backed cathedral with two stiff towers. As we got into 
the town, the tile roofs seemed to tumble uphill one upon 10 
another, in the oddest disorder ; but for all their scram- 
bling, they did not attain above the knees of the cathedral, 
which stood, upright and solemn, over all. As the streets 
drew near to this presiding genius, through the market 
place under the Hotel de Ville, they grew emptier and 15 
more composed. Blank walls and shuttered windows 
were turned to the great edifice, and grass grew on the 
white causeway. " Put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for 
the place whereon thou standest is holy ground." The 
Hotel dti Nord, nevertheless, lights its secular tapers 20 
within a stone cast of the church ; and we had the superb 
east-end before our eyes all morning from the window of 
our bedroom. I have seldom looked on the east-end of 
a church with more complete sympathy. As it flanges 
out in three wide terraces, and settles down broadly on 25 
the earth, it looks like the poop of some great old battle- 



98 Inland Voyage 

ship. Hollow-backed buttresses carry vases, which figure 
for the stern lanterns. There is a roll in the ground, and 
the towers just appear above the pitch of the roof, as 
though the good ship were bowing lazily over an Atlantic 
5 swell. At any moment it might be a hundred feet away 
from you, climbing the next billow. At any moment a 
window might open, and some old admiral thrust forth a 
cocked hat, and proceed to take an observation. The old 
admirals sail the sea no longer ; the old ships of battle 

10 are all broken up, and live only in pictures; but this, that 
was a church before ever they were thought upon, is still 
a church, and makes as brave an appearance by the Oise. 
The cathedral and the river are probably the two oldest 
things for miles around ; and certainly they have both a 

IS grand old age. 

The sacristan ^ took us to the top of one of the towers, 
and showed us the five bells hanging in their loft. From 
above, the town was a tessellated pavement of roofs and 
gardens ; the old line of rampart was plainly traceable ; 

20 and the sacristan pointed out to us, far across the plain, 
in a bit of gleaming sky between two clouds, the towers 
of Chateau Coucy. 

I find I never weary of great churches. It is my 
favourite kind of mountain scenery. Mankind was never 

25 so happily inspired as when it made a cathedral : a thing 
as single and specious as a statue to the first glance, 
and yet, on examination, as lively and interesting as a for- 
est in detail. The height of spires cannot be taken by 
1 Sexton. 



Noyon Cathedral 99 

trigonometry ; they measure absurdly short, but how tall 
they are to the admiring eye ! And where we have so 
many elegant proportions, growing one out of the other, 
and all together into one, it seems as if proportion tran- 
scended itself and became something different and more 5 
imposing. I could never fathom how a man dares to 
lift up his voice to preach in a cathedral. What is he to 
say that will not be an anti-climax? For though I have 
heard a considerable variety of sermons, I never yet heard 
one that was so expressive as a cathedral. 'Tis the best 10 
preacher itself, and preaches day and night ; not only 
telling you of man's art and aspirations in the past, but con- 
victing your own soul of ardent sympathies ; or rather, like 
all good preachers, it sets you preaching to yourself; — and 
every man is his own doctor of divinity in the last resort. 15 

As I sat outside of the hotel in the course of the after- 
noon, the sweet groaning thunder of the organ floated 
out of the church Hke a summons. I was not averse, 
liking the theatre so well, to sit out an act or two of the 
play, but I could never rightly make out the nature of the 20 
service I beheld. Four or five priests and as many chor- 
isters were singing Miserere before the high altar when 
I went in. There was no congregation but a few old 
women on chairs and old men kneeling on the pavement. 
After a while a long train of young girls, walking two and 25 
two, each with a lighted taper in her hand, and all dressed 
in black with a white veil, came from behind the altar and 
began to descend the nave ; the four first carrying a Vir- 
gin and child upon a table. The priests and choristers 



lOO Inland Voyage 

arose from their knees and followed after singing " Ave 
Mary " as they went. In this order they made the cir- 
cuit of the cathedral, passing twice before me where I 
leaned against a pillar. The priest who seemed of most 
5 consequence was a strange, down-looking old man. He 
kept mumbUng prayers with his lips ; but as he looked 
upon me darkUng, it did not seem as if prayer were 
uppermost in his heart. Two others, who bore the bur- 
then of the chaunt, were stout, brutal, military-looking 

lo men of forty, with bold, over-fed eyes ; they sang with 
some lustiness, and trolled forth '' Ave Mary " like a gar- 
rison catch. The little girls were timid and grave. As 
they footed slowly up the aisle, each one took a moment's 
glance at the Englishman ; and the big nun who played 

15 marshal fairly stared him out of countenance. As for the 
choristers, from first to last they misbehaved as only boys 
can misbehave ; and cruelly marred the performance 
with their antics. 

I understood a great deal of the spirit of what went on. 

20 Indeed it would be difficult not to understand the M/se- 
rere, which I take to be the composition of an atheist. 
If it ever be a good thing to take such despondency to 
heart, the Miserere is the right niusic and a cathedral a 
fit scene. So far I am at one with the Catholics : — an 

25 odd name for them, after all? But why, in God's name, 
these hoHday choristers? why these priests who steal 
wandering looks about the congregation while they feign 
to be at prayer? why this fat nun, who rudely arranges 
her procession and shakes delinquent virgins by the 



Noyon Cathedral loi 

elbow? why this spitting, and snuffing, and forgetting of 
keys, and the thousand and one Uttle misadventures that 
disturb a frame of mind, laboriously edified with chaunts 
and organings? In any playhouse reverend fathers may 
see what can be done with a little art, and how, to move 5 
high sentiments, it is necessary to drill the supernumera- 
ries and have every stool in its proper place. 

One other circumstance distressed me. I could bear 
a Miserere myself, having had a good deal of open air 
exercise of late ; but I wished the old people somewhere 10 
else. It was neither the right sort of music nor the right 
sort of divinity for men and women who have come 
through most accidents by this time, and probably have 
an opinion of their own upon the tragic element in life. 
A person up in years can generally do his own Miserere 15 
for himself; although I notice that such an one often 
prefers Jubilate Deo for his ordinary singing. On the 
whole, the most religious exercise for the aged is prob- 
ably to recall their own experience; so many friends 
dead, so many hopes disappointed, so many slips and 20 
stumbles, and withal so many bright days and smiling 
providences ; there is surely the matter of a very elo- 
quent sermon in all this. 

On the whole, I was greatly solemnized. In the little 
pictorial map of our whole Inland Voyage, which my 25 
fancy still preserves, and sometimes unrolls for the 
amusement of odd moments, Noyon cathedral figures on 
a most preposterous scale, and must be nearly as large as 
a department. I can still see the faces of the priests as 



I02 Inland Voyage 

if they were at my elbow, and hear Ave Maria, ora pro 
nobis sounding through the church. All Noyon is blotted 
out for me by these superior memories; and I do not 
care to say more about the place. It was but a stack of 
5 brown roofs at the best, where I believe people live very 
reputably in a quiet way ; but the shadow of the church 
falls upon it when the sun is low, and the five bells are 
heard in all quarters, telling that the organ has begun. 
If ever I join the church of Rome, I shall stipulate to be 
lo Bishop of Noyon on the Oise. 

DOWN THE OISE: TO COMPIEGNE 

The most patient people grow weary at last with being 
continually wetted with rain ; except of course in the 
Scotch Highlands, where there are not enough fine 
intervals to point the difference. That was like to be 

IS our case, the day we left Noyon. I remember nothing 
of the voyage ; it was nothing but clay banks and willows, 
and rain ; incessant, pitiless, beating rain : until we 
stopped to lunch at a little inn at Pimprez, where the 
canal ran very near the river. We were so sadly drenched 

20 that the landlady lit a few sticks in the chimney for our 
comfort ; there we sat in a steam of vapour, lamenting 
our concerns. The husband donned a game-bag and 
strode out to shoot ; the wife sat in a far corner watching 
us. I think we were worth looking at. We grumbled 

25 over the misfortune of La Fere ; we forecast other La 
Feres in the future ; — although things went better with 



Down the Oise : To Compiegne 103 

the Cigarette for spokesman; he had more aplomb 
altogether than I ; and a dull, positive way of approach- 
ing a landlady that carried off the india-rubber bags. 
Talking of La Fere, put us talking of the reservists. 

" Reservery," said he, " seems a pretty mean way to 5 
spend one's autumn hohday." 

" About as mean," returned I, dejectedly, " as canoeing." 

"These gentlemen travel for their pleasure?" asked 
the landlady, with unconscious irony. 

It was too much. The scales fell from our eyes. An- 10 
other wet day, it was determined, and we put the boats 
into the train. 

The weather took the hint. That was our last wetting. 
The afternoon faired up : grand clouds still voyaged in the 
sky, but now singly, and with a depth of blue around 15 
their path ; and a sunset, in the daintiest rose and gold, 
inaugurated a thick night of stars and a month of unbroken 
weather. At the same time, the river began to give us a 
better outlook into the country. The banks were not so 
high, the willows disappeared from along the margin, and 20 
pleasant hills stood all along its course and marked their 
profile on the sky. 

In a little while, the canal, coming to its last lock, be- 
gan to discharge its water-houses on the Oise ; so that we 
had no lack of company to fear. Here were all our old 25 
friends ; the Deo Gratias of Conde and the Four Sons of 
Aymon journeyed cheerily down stream along with us ; 
we exchanged waterside pleasantries with the steersman 
perched among the lumber, or the driver hoarse with 



I04 Inland Voyage 

bawling to his horses ; and the children came and looked 
over the side as we paddled by. We had never known 
all this while how much we missed them ; but it gave us 
a fillip to see the smoke from their chimneys. 

5 A little below this junction, we made another meeting 
of yet more account. For there we were joined by the 
Aisne, already a far- travelled river and fresh out of 
Champagne. Here ended the adolescence of the Oise ; 
this was his marriage day ; thenceforward he had a stately, 

lo brimming march, conscious of his own dignity and sundry 
dams. He became a tranquil feature in the scene. 
The trees and towns saw themselves in him, as in a mirror. 
He carried the canoes lightly on his broad breast ; there 
was no need to work hard against an eddy : but idleness 

IS became the order of the day, and mere straightforward 
dipping of the paddle, now on this side, now on that, 
without intelligence or effort. Truly we were coming into 
halcyon weather upon all accounts, and were floated tow- 
ards the sea Hke gentlemen. 

20 We made Compiegne as the sun was going down : a 
fine profile of a town above the river. Over the bridge 
a regiment was parading to the drum. People loitered 
on the quay, some fishing, some looking idly at the stream. 
And as the two boats shot in along the water, we could 

25 see them pointing them out and speaking one to another. 
We landed at a floating lavatory, where the washerwomen 
were still beating the clothes. 



At Compiegne 105 

AT COMPIEGNE 

We put up at a big, bustling hotel in Compiegne, 
where nobody observed our presence. 

Reservery and general milifarismus (as the Germans 
call it) was rampant. A camp of conical white tents 
without the town looked like a leaf out of a picture Bible ; 5 
svvord-belts decorated the walls of the cafes; and the 
streets kept sounding all day long with mihtary music. 
It was not possible to be an Englishman and avoid a 
feeling of elation ; for the men who followed the drums 
were small, and walked shabbily. Each man inclined at 10 
his own angle, and jolted to his own convenience, as he 
went. There was nothing of the superb gait with which 
a regiment of tall Highlanders moves behind its music, 
solemn and inevitable, hke a natural phenomenon. Who, 
that has seen it, can forget the drum-major pacing ims 
front, the drummers' tiger-skins, the pipers' swinging 
plaids, the strange elastic rhythm of the whole regiment 
footing it in time — and the bang of the drum, when the 
brasses cease and the shrill pipes take up the martial 
story in their place? 20 

A girl at school in France began to describe one of 
our regiments on parade, to her French schoolmates ; 
and as she went on, she told me, the recollection grew so 
vivid, she became so proud to be the countrywoman of 
such soldiers, and so sorry to be in another country, that 25 
her voice failed her and she burst into tears. I have 
never forgotten that girl ; and I think she very nearly 



io6 Inland Voyage 

deserves a statue. To call her a young lady, with all its 
niminy associations, would be to offer her an insult. She 
may rest assured of one thing ; although she never should 
marry a heroic general, never see any great or immediate 
5 result of her life, she will not have lived in vain for her 
native land. 

But though French soldiers show to ill advantage on 
parade, on the march they are gay, alert, and willing like 
a troop of fox-hunters. I remember once seeing a com- 

lopany pass through the forest of Fontainebleau, on the 
Chailly road, between the Bas Br^au and the Reine 
Blanche. One fellow walked a little before the rest, and 
sang a loud, audacious marching song. The rest bestirred 
their feet, and even swung their muskets in time. A 

15 young officer on horseback had hard ado to keep his 
countenance at the words. You never saw anything so 
cheerful and spontaneous as their gait ; schoolboys do 
not look more eagerly at hare and hounds ; and you 
would have thought it impossible to tire such willing 

20 marchers. 

My great delight in Compiegne was the town-hall. I 
doted upon the town-hall. It is a monument of Gothic 
insecurity, all turreted, and gargoyled, and slashed, and 
bedizened with half a score of architectural fancies. 

25 Some of the niches are gilt and painted ; and in a great 
square panel in the centre, in black relief on a gilt ground, 
Louis XII rides upon a pacing horse, with hand on hip 
and head thrown back. There is royal arrogance in every 
line of him ; the stirrupped foot projects insolently from 



At Compiegne 107 

the frame ; the eye is hard and proud ; the very horse 
seems to be treading with gratification over prostrate serfs, 
and to have the breath of the trumpet in his nostrils. So 
rides for ever, on the front of the town-hall, the good king 
Louis XII, the father of his people. 5 

Over the king's head, in the tall centre turret, appears 
the dial of a clock ; and high above that three little 
mechanical figures, each one with a hammer in his hand, 
whose business it is to chime out the hours and halves and 
quarters for the burgesses of Compiegne. The centre 10 
figure has a gilt breast-plate; the two others wear gilt 
trunk-hose ; and they all three have elegant, flapping hats 
like cavaliers. As the quarter approaches, they turn their 
heads and look knowingly one to the other ; and then, 
kling go the three hammers on three little bells below. 15 
The hour follows, deep and sonorous, from the interior of 
the tower; and the gilded gentlemen rest from their 
labours with contentment. 

I had a great deal of healthy pleasure from their ma- 
noeuvres, and took good care to miss as few performances 20 
as possible ; and I found that even the Cigarette, while 
he pretended to despise my enthusiasm, was more or less 
a devotee himself. There is something highly absurd in 
the exposition of such toys to the outrages of winter on a 
house-top. They would be more in keeping in a glass 25 
case before a Nlirnberg clock. Above all, at night, when 
the children are abed, and even grown people are snor- 
ing under quilts, does it not seem impertinent to leave 
these gingerbread figures winking and tinkling to the 



io8 Inland Voyage 

stars and the rolling moon? The gargoyles may fitly 
enough twist their ape-like heads ; fitly enough may the 
potentate bestride his charger, like a centurion in an old 
German print of the Via Dolorosa ; but the toys should 
5 be put away in a box among some cotton, until the sun 
rises, and the children are abroad again to be amused. 

In Compiegne post-office, a great packet of letters 
awaited us; and the authorities were, for this occasion 
only, so polite as to hand them over upon application. 

lo In some way, our journey may be said to end with this 
letter- bag at Compiegne. The spell was broken. We had 
partly come home from that moment. 

No one should have any correspondence on a journey ; 
it is bad enough to have to write ; but the receipt of letters 

15 is the death of all holiday feehng. 

" Out of my country and myself I go." I wish to take 
a dive among new conditions for a while, as into another 
element. I have nothing to do with my friends or my 
affections for the time ; when I came away, I left my heart 

20 at home in a desk, or sent it forward with my portmanteau 
to await me at my destination. After my journey is over, 
I shall not fail to read your admirable letters with the 
attention they deserve. But I have paid all this money, 
look you, and paddled all these strokes, for no other pur- 

25 pose than to be abroad ; and yet you keep me at home 
with your perpetual communications. You tug the string, 
and I feel that I am a tethered bird. You pursue me all 
over Europe with the little vexations that I came away to 
avoid. There is no discharge in the war of life, I am 



I 



At Compiegne 109 

well aware ; but shall there not be so much as a week's 
furlough ? 

We were up by six the day we were to leave. They 
had taken so little note of us that I hardly thought they 
would have condescended on a bill. But they did, with 5 
some smart particulars too ; and we paid in a civilized 
manner to an uninterested clerk, and went out of that 
hotel, with the india-rubber bags, unremarked. No one ^ 
cared to know about us. It is not possible to rise before a 
village ; but Compiegne was so grown a town, that it took 10 ^ 
its ease in the morning ; and we were up and away while 
it was still in dressing-gown and slippers. The streets 
were left to people washing door-steps ; nobody was in 
full dress but the cavaliers upon the town-hall ; they were 
all washed with dew, spruce in their gilding, and full of 15 
intelhgence and a sense of professional responsibility. 
Kling, went they on the bells for the half-past six, as we 
went by. I took it kind of them to make me this parting 
comphment ; they never were in better form, not even at 
noon upon a Sunday. 20 

There was no one to see us off but the early washer- 
women — early and late — who were already beating the 
linen in their floating lavatory on the river. They were 
very merry and matutinal in their ways ; plunged their 
arms boldly in, and seemed not to feel the shock. It 25 
would be dispiriting to me, this early beginning and first 
cold dabble, of a most dispiriting day's work. But I be- 
lieve they would have been as unwilling to change days 
with us, as we could be to change with them. They 



I lo Inland Voyage 

crowded to the door to watch us paddle away into the 
thin sunny mists upon the river ; and shouted heartily 
after us till we were through the bridge. 

CHANGED TIMES 

There is a sense in which those mists never rose from 
5 off our journey ; and from that time forth they lie very 
densely in my note-book. As long as the Oise was a small 
rural river, it took us near by people's doors, and we could 
hold a conversation with natives in the riparian fields. But 
now that it had grown so wide, the Hfe along shore passed 

10 us by at a distance. It was the same difference as between 
a great public highway and a country bypath that wanders 
in and out of cottage gardens. We now lay in towns, 
where nobody troubled us with questions ; we had floated 
into civilized life, where people pass without salutation. 

15 In sparsely inhabited places we make all we can of each 
encounter ; but when it comes to a city, we keep to our- 
selves, and never speak unless we have trodden on a man's 
toes. In these waters we were no longer strange birds, 
and nobody supposed we had travelled further than from 

20 the last town. I remember, when we came into L'Isle 
Adam, for instance, how we met dozens of pleasure-boats 
outing it for the afternoon, and there was nothing to dis- 
tinguish the true voyager from the amateur, except, perhaps, 
the filthy condition of my sail. The company in one boat 

25 actually thought they recognized me for a neighbour. 
Was there ever anything more wounding? All the ro- 



Changed Times 1 1 1 

mance had come down to that. Now, on the upper Oise, 
where nothing sailed as a general thing but fish, a pair of 
canoeists could not be thus vulgarly explained away ; we 
were strange and picturesque intruders ; and out of people's 
wonder sprang a sort of light and passing intimacy all 5 
along our route. There is nothing but tit for tat in this 
world, though sometimes it be a little difficult to trace ; 
for the scores are older than we ourselves, and there has 
never yet been a settling-day since things were. You get 
entertainment pretty much in proportion as you give. As 10 
long as we were a sort of odd wanderers, to be stared at 
and followed like a quack doctor or a caravan, we had no 
want of amusement in return ; but as soon as we sank 
into commonplace ourselves, all whom we met were simi- 
larly disenchanted. And here is one reason of a dozen 15 
why the world is dull to dull persons. 

In our earlier adventures there was generally some- 
thing to do, and that quickened us. Even the showers 
of rain had a revivifying effect, and shook up the brain 
from torpor. But now, when the river no longer ran in a 20 
proper sense, only glided seaward with an even, outright, 
but imperceptible speed, and when the sky smiled upon 
us day after day without variety, we began to slip into 
that golden doze of the mind which follows upon much 
exercise in the open air. I have stupefied myself in this 25 
way more than once ; indeed, I dearly love the feeling ; 
but I never had it to the same degree as when paddhng 
down the Oise. It was the apotheosis of stupidity. 

We ceased reading entirely. Sometimes when I found 



112 Inland Voyage 

a new paper, I took a particular pleasure in reading a 
single number of the current novel ; but I never could 
bear more than three instalments ; and even the second 
was a disappointment. As soon as the tale became in 

5 any way perspicuous, it lost all merit in my eyes ; only a 
single scene, or, as is the way with these feuilletons, half 
a scene, without antecedent or consequence, like a 
piece of a dream, had the knack of fixing my interest. 
The less I saw of the novel, the better I liked it : a 

lo pregnant reflection. But for the most part, as I said, 
we neither of us read anything in the world, and em- 
ployed the very little while we were awake between bed 
and dinner in poring upon maps. I have always been 
fond of maps, and can voyage in an atlas with the great- 

15 est enjoyment. The names of places are singularly invit- 
ing ; the contour of coasts and rivers is enthraUing to the 
eye ; and to hit, in a map, upon some place you have 
heard of before, makes history a new possession. But we 
thumbed our charts, on these evenings, with the blankest 

20 unconcern. We cared not a fraction for this place or 
that. We stared at the sheet as children Hsten to their 
rattle ; and read the names of towns or villages to forget 
them again at once. We had no romance in the matter ; 
there was nobody so fancy-free. If you had taken the 

25 maps away while we were studying them most intently, 
it is a fair bet whether we might not have continued to 
study the table with the same delight. 

About one thing we were mightily taken up, and that 
was eating. I think I made a god of my belly. I re- 



Changed Times 113 

member dwelling in imagination upon this or that dish 
till my mouth watered ; and long before we got in for the 
night my appetite was a clamant, instant annoyance. 
Sometimes we paddled alongside for a while and whetted 
each other with gastronomical fancies as we went. Cake 5 
and sherry, a homely refection, but not within reach upon 
the Oise, trotted through my head for many a mile ; and 
once, as we were approaching Verberie, the Cigarette 
brought my heart into my mouth by the suggestion of 
oyster patties and Sauterne. 10 

I suppose none of us recognize the great part that is 
played in life by eating and drinking. The appetite is so 
imperious, that we can stomach the least interesting 
viands, and pass off a dinner hour thankfully enough on 
bread and water; just as there are men who must read 15 
something, if it were only Bradshaw^s Guide. But there 
is a romance about the matter after all. Probably the 
table has more devotees than love ; and I am sure that 
food is much more generally entertaining than scenery. 
Do you give in, as Walt Whitman would say, that you are 20 
any the less immortal for that ? The true materialism is 
to be ashamed of what we are. To detect the flavour of 
an oHve is no less a piece of human perfection than to 
find beauty in the colours of the sunset. 

Canoeing was easy work. To dip the paddle at the 25 
proper inclination, now right, now left ; to keep the head 
down stream ; to empty the litde pool that gathered in 
the lap of the apron ; to screw up the eyes against the 
glittering sparkles of sun upon the water ; or now and 

INLAND VOYAGE — 8 



1 14 Inland Voyage 

again to pass below the whistling tow-rope of the Deo 
Gratias of Cond^, or the Four Sons of Aymon — there 
was not much art in that ; certain silly muscles managed 
it between sleep and waking ; and meanwhile the brain 
5 had a whole holiday, and went to sleep. We took in, at 
a glance, the larger features of the scene ; and beheld, 
with half an eye, bloused fishers and dabbling washer- 
women on the bank. Now and again we might be half 
wakened by some church spire, by a leaping fish, or by a 

10 trail of river grass that clung about the paddle and had to 
be plucked off and thrown away. But these luminous 
intervals were only partially luminous. A little more of 
us was called into action, but never the whole. The 
central bureau of nerves, what in some moods we call 

15 Ourselves, enjoyed its holiday without disturbance, like a 
Government Office. The great wheels of intelligence 
turned idly in the head, like fly-wheels, grinding no grist, I 
have gone on for half an hour at a time, counting my strokes 
and forgetting the hundreds. I flatter myself the beasts 

20 that perish could not underbid that, as a low form of con- 
sciousness. And what a pleasure it was ! What a hearty, 
tolerant temper did it bring about ! There is nothing 
captious about a man who has attained to this, the one 
possible apotheosis in life, the Apotheosis of Stupidity ; 

25 and he begins to feel dignified and longaevous like a 
tree. 

There was one odd piece of practical metaphysics which 
accompanied what I may call the depth, if I must not 
call it the intensity, of my abstraction. What philosophers 



Changed Times 115 

call me and not 7ne, ego and non ego, preoccupied me 
whether I would or no. There was less me and more not 
me than I was accustomed to expect. I looked on upon 
somebody else, who managed the paddhng ; I was aware 
of somebody else's feet against the stretcher ; my own 5 
body seemed to have no more intimate relation to me 
than the canoe, or the river, or the river banks. Nor 
this alone : something inside my mind, a part of my 
brain, a province of my proper being, had thrown off 
allegiance and set up for itself, or perhaps for the some- 10 
body else who did the paddling. I had dwindled into 
quite a little thing in a corner of myself. I was isolated 
in my own skull. Thoughts presented themselves un- 
bidden; they were not my thoughts, they were plainly 
someone else's; and I considered them like a part of the 15 
landscape. I take it, in short, that I was about as near 
Nirvana as would be convenient in practical life; and if 
this be so, I make the Buddhists my sincere compHments ; 
'tis an agreeable state, not very consistent with mental 
brilliancy, not exactly profitable in a money point of 20 
view, but very calm, golden, and incurious, and one that 
sets a man superior to alarms. It may be best figured by 
supposing yourself to get dead drunk, and yet keep sober 
to enjoy it. I have a notion that open air labourers must 
spend a large portion of their days in this ecstatic stupor, 25 
which explains their high composure and endurance. A 
pity to go to the expense of laudanum, when here is a 
better paradise for nothing ! 

This frame of mind was the great exploit of our voyage, 



ii6 Inland Voyage 

take it all in all. It was the farthest piece of travel ac- 
complished. Indeed, it lies so far from beaten paths of 
language, that I despair of getting the reader into sympa- 
thy with the smiling, complacent idiocy of my condition ; 
5 when ideas came and went like motes in a sunbeam ; when 
trees and church spires along the bank surged up from 
time to time into my notice, like solid objects through a 
rolling cloudland; when the rhythmical swish of boat 
and paddle in the water became a cradle-song to lull my 

lo thoughts asleep ; when a piece of mud on the deck was 
sometimes an intolerable eyesore, and sometimes quite a 
companion for me, and the object of pleased considera- 
tion ; — and all the time, with the river running and the 
shores changing upon either hand, I kept counting my 

1 5 strokes and forgetting the hundreds, the happiest animal 
in France. 

DOWN THE OISE: CHURCH INTERIORS 

We made our first stage below Compi^gne to Pont Sainte 
Maxence. I was abroad a little after six the next morn- 
ing. The air was biting and smelt of frost. In an open 

20 place, a score of women wrangled together over the day's 
market ; and the noise of their negotiation sounded thin 
and querulous like that of sparrows on a winter's morning. 
The rare passengers blew into their hands, and shuffled 
in their wooden shoes to set the blood agog. The streets 

25 were full of icy shadow, although the chimneys were 
smoking overhead in golden sunshine. If you wake early 



Down the Oise : Church Interiors 117 

enough at this season of the year, you may get up in De- 
cember to break your fast in June. 

I found my way to the church ; for there is always 
something to see about a church, whether hving worship- 
pers or dead men's tombs ; you find there the deadhest 5 
earnest, and the hollowest deceit ; and even where it is 
not a piece of history, it will be certain to leak out some 
contemporary gossip. It was scarcely so cold in the 
church as it was without, but it looked colder. The 
white nave was positively arctic to the eye ; and the taw- 10 
driness of a continental altar looked more forlorn than 
usual in the solitude and the bleak air. Two priests sat 
in the chancel, reading and waiting penitents ; and out 
in the nave, one very old woman was engaged in her de- 
votions. It was a wonder how she was able to pass her 15 
beads when healthy young people were breathing in their 
palms and slapping their chest ; but though this con- 
cerned me, I was yet more dispirited by the nature of 
her exercises. She went from chair to chair, from altar 
to altar, circumnavigating the church. To each shrine, 20 
she dedicated an equal number of beads and an equal 
length of time. Like a prudent capitalist with a some- 
what cynical view of the commercial prospect, she desired to 
place her supplications in a great variety of heavenly secur- 
ities. She would risk nothing on the credit of any single in- 25 
tercessor. Out of the whole company of saints and angels, 
not one but was to suppose himself her champion elect 
against the Great Assizes ! I could only think of it as a dull, 
transparent jugglery, based upon unconscious unbelief. 



1 18 Inland Voyage 

She was as dead an old woman as ever I saw ; no more 
than bone and parchment, curiously put together. Her 
eyes, with which she interrogated mine, were vacant of 
sense. It depends on what you call seeing, whether you 
5 might not call her blind. Perhaps she had known love : 
perhaps borne children, suckled them and given them 
pet names. But now that was all gone by, and had left 
her neither happier nor wiser ; and the best she could do 
with her mornings was to come up here into the cold 

lo church and juggle for a slice of heaven. It was not with- 
out a gulp that I escaped into the streets and the keen 
morning air. Morning? why, how tired of it she would 
be before night ! and if she did not sleep, how then? It 
is fortunate that not many of us are brought up publicly 

15 to justify our lives at the bar of threescore years and ten ; 
fortunate that such a number are knocked opportunely 
on the head in what they call the flower of their years, and 
go away to suffer for their follies in private somewhere 
else. Otherwise, between sick children and discon- 

20 tented old folk, we might be put out of all conceit of 
life. 

I had need of all my cerebral hygiene during that 
day's paddle : the old devotee stuck in my throat sorely. 
But I was soon in the seventh heaven of stupidity; and 

25 knew nothing but that somebody was paddling a canoe, 
while I was counting his strokes and forgetting the 
hundreds. I used sometimes to be afraid I should re- 
member the hundreds ; which would have made a toil of 
a pleasure ; but the terror was chimerical, they went out 



Down the Oise : Church Interiors 119 

of my mind by enchantment, and I knew no more than 
the man in the moon about my only occupation. 

At Creil, where we stopped to lunch, we left the canoes 
in another floating lavatory, which, as it was high noon, 
was packed with washerwomen, red-handed and loud- 5 
voiced; and they and their broad jokes are about all 
I remember of the place. I could look up my history 
books, if you were very anxious, and tell you a date or 
two ; for it figured rather largely in the English wars. 
But I prefer to mention a girls' boarding-school, which 10 
had an interest for us because it was a girls' boarding- 
school, and because we imagined we had rather an 
interest for it. At least — there were the girls about the 
garden ; and here were we on the river ; and there was 
more than one handkerchief waved as we went by. It 15 
caused quite a stir in my heart ; and yet how we should 
have wearied and despised each other, these girls and I, 
if we had been introduced at a croquet party ! But this 
is a fashion I love : to kiss the hand or wave a handker- 
chief to people I shall never see again, to play with 20 
possibility, and knock in a peg for fancy to hang upon. 
It gives the traveller a jog, reminds him that he is not a 
traveller everywhere, and that his journey is no more 
than a siesta by the way on the real march of life. 

The church at Creil was a nondescript place in the 25 
inside, splashed with gaudy lights from the windows, and 
picked out with medalHons of the Dolorous Way. But 
there was one oddity, in the way of an ex vofo, which 
pleased me hugely : a faithful model of a canal-boat. 



I20 Inland Voyage 

swung from the vault, with a written aspiration that God 
should conduct the Saint Nicolas of Creil to a good 
haven. The thing was neatly executed, and would have 
made the delight of a party of boys on the waterside. 
5 But what tickled me was the gravity of the peril to be 
conjured. You might hang up the model of a sea-going 
ship and welcome : one that is to plough a furrow round 
the world, and visit the tropic or the frosty poles, runs 
dangers that are well worth a candle and a mass. But 

lo the Saint Nicolas of Creil, which was to be tugged for 
some ten years by patient draught horses, in a weedy 
canal, with the poplars chattering overhead, and the 
skipper whistling' at the tiller ; which was to do all its 
errands in green, inland places, and never got out of sight 

15 of a village belfry in all its cruising ; why, you would 
have thought if anything could be done without the 
intervention of Providence, it would be that ! But 
perhaps the skipper was a humorist : or perhaps a 
prophet, reminding people of the seriousness of life by 

20 this preposterous token. 

At Creil, as at Noyon, Saint Joseph seemed a favourite 
saint on the score of punctuaHty. Day and hour can be 
specified ; and grateful people do not fail to specify them 
on a votive tablet, when prayers have been punctually 

25 and neatly answered. Whenever time is a consideration, 
Saint Joseph is the proper intermediary. I took a sort of 
pleasure in observing the vogue he had in France, for 
the good man plays a very small part in my religion at 
home. Yet I could not help fearing that, where the 



I 



Down the Olse : Church Interiors 121 

Saint is so much commended for exactitude, he will be 
expected to be very grateful for his tablet. 

This is fooHshness to us Protestants ; and not of great 
importance anyway. Whether people's gratitude for the 
good gifts that come to them be wisely conceived or 5 
dutifully expressed, is a secondary matter, after all, so 
long as they feel gratitude. The true ignorance is when 
a man does not know that he has received a good gift, 
or begins to imagine that he has got it for himself. The 
self-made man is the funniest windbag after all ! There 10 
is a marked difference between decreeing light in chaos, 
and lighting the gas in a metropolitan back-parlour with a 
box of patent matches ; and do what we will, there is always 
something made to our hand, if it were only our fingers. 

But there was something worse than foolishness pla-15 
carded in Creil Church. The Association of the Living 
Rosary (of which I had never previously heard) is respon- 
sible for that. This association was founded, according 
to the printed advertisement, by a brief of Pope Gregory 
Sixteenth, on the 17th of January, 1832 : according to a 20 
coloured bas-relief, it seems to have been founded, 
sometime or other, by the Virgin giving one rosary to 
Saint Dominic, and the Infant Saviour giving another to 
Saint Catherine of Sienna. Pope Gregory is not so 
imposing, but he is nearer hand. I could not distinctly 25 
make out whether the association was entirely devotional, 
or had an eye to good works ; at least it is highly organ- 
ized : the names of fourteen matrons and misses were 
filled in for each week of the month as associates, with 



122 Inland Voyage 

one other, generally a married woman, at the top for 
Zelatrice : the choragus of the band. Indulgences, 
plenary and partial, follow on the performance of the 
duties of the association. " The partial indulgences are 
5 attached to the recitation of the rosary." On "the reci- 
tation of the required dizain e,^' a partial indulgence 
promptly follows. When people serve the kingdom of 
Heaven with a pass-book in their hands, I should always 
be afraid lest they should carry the same commercial 

lo spirit into their dealings with their fellow-men, which 
would make a sad and sordid business of this life. 

There is one more article, however, of happier import. 
"All these indulgences," it appeared, "are apphcable to 
souls in purgatory." For God's sake, ye ladies of Creil, 

IS apply them all to the souls in purgatory without delay ! 
Burns would take no hire for his last songs, preferring to 
serve his country out of unmixed love. Suppose you 
were to imitate the exciseman, mesdames, and even if 
the souls in purgatory were not greatly bettered, some 

20 souls in Creil upon the Oise would find themselves 
none the worse either here or hereafter. 

I cannot help wondering, as I transcribe these notes, 
whether a Protestant born and bred is in a fit state to 
understand these signs, and do them what justice they 

25 deserve ; and I cannot help answering that he is not. They 
cannot look so merely ugly and mean to the faithful as 
they do to me. I see that as clearly as a proposition in 
EucHd. For these behevers are neither weak nor wicked. 
They can put up their tablet commending Saint Joseph 



Precy and the Marionettes i 23 

for his dispatch, as if he were still a village carpenter ; 
they can " recite the required dizaine,'' and metaphori- 
cally pocket the indulgence, as if they had done a job for 
heaven ; and then they can go out and look down un- 
abashed upon this wonderful river flowing by, and up with- 5 
out confusion at the pin-point stars, which are themselves 
great worlds full of flowing rivers greater than the Oise. 
I see it as plainly, I say, as a proposition in Euclid, that 
my Protestant mind has missed the point, and that there 
goes with these deformities some higher and more relig- ic 
ious spirit than I dream. 

I wonder if other people would make the same 
allowances for me ? Like the ladies of Creil, having 
recited my rosary of toleration, I look for my indulgence 
on the spot. 15 

PRECY AND THE MARIONETTES 

We made Pr^cy about sundown. The plain is rich with 
tufts of poplar. In a wide, luminous curve, the Oise lay 
under the hill-side. A faint mist began to rise and con- 
found the different distances together. There was not a 
sound audible but that of the sheep-bells in some mead- 20 
ows by the river, and the creaking of a cart down the 
long road that descends the hill. The villas in their 
gardens, the shops along the street, all seemed to have 
been deserted the day before ; and I felt inclined to walk 
discreetly as one feels in a silent forest. All of a sudden, 25 
we came round a corner, and there, in a little green round 



24 Inland Voyage 



the church, was a bevy of girls in Parisian costumes play- 
ing croquet. Their laughter and the hollow sound of 
ball and mallet made a cheery stir in the neighbourhood ; 
and the look of these slim figures, all corseted and rib- 
5 boned, produced an answerable disturbance in our hearts. 
We were within sniff of Paris, it seemed. And here were 
females of our own species playing croquet, just as if 
Pr^cy had been a place in real life, instead of a stage in 
the fairy land of travel. For, to be frank, the peasant 

ic woman is scarcely to be counted as a woman at all, and after 
having passed by such a succession of people in petticoats 
digging and hoeing and making dinner, this company of 
coquettes under arms made quite a surprising feature in 
the landscape, and convinced us at once of being fallible 

T 5 males. 

The inn at Pr^cy is the worst inn in France. Not 
even in Scotland have I found worse fare. It was kept 
by a brother and sister, neither of whom was out of their 
teens. The sister, so to speak, prepared a meal for us ; 

2o and the brother, who had been tippling, came in and 
brought with him a tipsy butcher, to entertain us as we 
ate. We found pieces of loo-warm pork among the 
salad, and pieces of unknown yielding substance in the 
ragout. The butcher entertained us with pictures of 

^5 Parisian life, with which he professed himself well ac- 
quainted ; the brother sitting the while on the edge of the 
bilHard table, toppling precariously, and sucking the 
stump of a cigar. In the midst of these diversions, bang 
went a drum past the house, and a hoarse voice began 



Precy and the Marionettes 125 

issuing a proclamation. It was a man with marionettes 
announcing a performance for that evening. 

He had set up his caravan and hghted his candles on 
another part of the girls' croquet green, under one of 
those open sheds which are so common in France to 5 
shelter markets ; and he and his wife, by the time we 
strolled up there, were trying to keep order with the 
audience. 

It was the most absurd contention. The show-people 
had set out a certain number of benches ; and all who sat 10 
upon them were to pay a couple of sous for the accom- 
modation. They were always quite full — a bumper 
house — as long as nothing was going forward ; but let 
the show-woman appear with an eye to a collection, and 
at the first rattle of her tambourine the audience slipped 15 
off the seats, and stood round on the outside with their 
hands in their pockets. It certainly would have tried an 
angel's temper. The showman roared from the pro- 
scenium ; he had been all over France, and nowhere, no- 
where, " not even on the borders of Germany," had he 20 
met with such misconduct. Such thieves and rogues and 
rascals, as he called them ! And every now and again 
the wife issued on another round, and added her shrill 
quota to the tirade. I remarked here, as elsewhere, how 
far more copious is the female mind in the material of 25 
insult. The audience laughed in high good humour 
over the man's declamations ; but they bridled and cried 
aloud under the woman's pungent sallies. She picked 
out the sore points. She had the honour of the village 



126 Inland Voyage 

at her mercy. Voices answered her angrily out of the 
crowd, and received a smarting retort for their trouble. 
A couple of old ladies beside me, who had duly paid for 
their seats, waxed very red and indignant, and dis- 
S coursed to each other audibly about the impudence of 
these mountebanks ; but as soon as the show- woman caught 
a whisper of this, she was down upon them with a swoop : 
if mesdames could persuade their neighbours to act with 
common honesty, the mountebanks, she assured them, 

lo would be polite enough : mesdames had probably had 
their bowl of soup, and perhaps a glass of wine that even- 
ing ; the mountebanks also had a taste for soup, and did 
not choose to have their little earnings stolen from them 
before their eyes. Once, things came as far as a 

15 brief personal encounter between the showman and some 
lads, in which the former went down as readily as one 
of his own marionettes to a peal of jeering laughter. 

I was a good deal astonished at this scene, because I 
am pretty well acquainted with the ways of French stroll- 

20 ers, more or less artistic ; and have always found them 
singularly pleasing. Any stroller must be dear to the 
right-thinking heart ; if it were only as a living protest 
against offices and the mercantile spirit, and as something 
to remind us that Hfe is not by necessity the kind of 

25 thing we generally make it. Even a German band if you 
see it leaving town in the early morning for a campaign 
in country places, among trees and meadows, has a ro- 
mantic flavour for the imagination. There is nobody, un- 
der thirty, so dead but his heart will stir a little at sight 



Precy and the Marionettes 127 

of a gipsies' camp. "We are not cotton-spinners all;" 
or, at least, not all through. There is some life in hu- 
manity yet : and youth will now and again find a brave 
word to say in dispraise of riches, and throw up a situation 
to go strolling with a knapsack. 5 

An Englishman has always special facilities for inter- 
course with French gymnasts ; for England is the natural 
home of gymnasts. This or that fellow, in his tights and 
spangles, is sure to know a word or two of English, to 
have drunk English aff-n-aff, and perhaps performed in 10 
an English music-hall. He is a countryman of mine by 
profession. He leaps, hke the Belgian boating men, to 
the notion that I must be an athlete myself. 

But the gymnast is not my favourite ; he has little or 
no tincture of the artist in his composition; his soul is 15 
small and pedestrian, for the most part, since his profes- 
sion makes no call upon it, and does not accustom him to 
high ideas. But if a man is only so much of an actor 
that he can stumble through a farce, he is made free of a 
new order of thoughts. He has something else to think 20 
about beside the money-box. He has a pride of his own, 
and, what is of far more importance, he has an aim be- 
fore him that he can never quite attain. He has gone 
upon a pilgrimage that will last him his life long, because 
there is no end to it short of perfection. He will better 25 
upon himself a little day by day ; or even if he has given 
up the attempt, he will always remember that once upon 
a time he had conceived this high ideal, that once upon 
a time he had fallen in love with a star. " 'Tis better to 



128 Inland Voyage 

have loved and lost." Although the moon should have 
nothing to say to Endymion, although he should settle 
down with Audrey and feed pigs, do you not think he 
would move with a better grace, and cherish higher 

S thoughts to the end ? The louts he meets at church 
never had a fancy above Audrey's snood ; but there is a 
reminiscence in Endymion's heart that, like a spice, keeps 
it fresh and haughty. 

To be even one of the outskirters of art, leaves a fine 

lo stamp on a man's countenance. I remember once dining 
with a party in the inn at Chateau Landon. Most of 
them were unmistakable bagmen ; others well-to-do peas- 
antry ; but there was one young fellow in a blouse, whose 
face stood out from among the rest surprisingly. It 

15 looked more finished; more of the spirit looked out 
through it ; it had a living, expressive air, and you could 
see that his eyes took things in. My companion and 
I wondered greatly who and what he could be. It was 
fair time in Chateau Landon, and when we went along 

20 to the booths, we had our question answered ; for there 
was our friend busily fiddhng for the peasants to caper 
to. He was a wandering violinist. 

A troop of strollers once came to the inn where I was 
staying, in the department of Seine et Marne. There 

25 was a father and mother; two daughters, brazen, blowsy 
huzzies, who sang and acted, without an idea of how to 
set about either ; and a dark young man, like a tutor, a 
recalcitrant house-painter, who sang and acted not amiss. 
The mother was the genius of the party, so far as genius 



I 



Precy and the Marionettes 129 

can be spoken of with regard to such a pack of incompe- 
tent humbugs ; and her husband could not find words to 
express his admiration for her comic countryman. " You 
should see my old woman," said he, and nodded his 
beery countenance. One night, they performed in the 5 
stable-yard, with flaring lamps : a wretched exhibition, 
coldly looked upon by a village audience. Next night, 
as soon as the lamps were lighted, there came a plump of 
rain, and they had to sweep away their baggage as fast as 
possible, and make off to the barn where they harboured, 10 
cold, wet, and supperless. In the morning, a dear friend 
of mine, who has as warm a heart for strollers as I have 
myself, made a little collection, and sent it by my hands 
to comfort them for their disappointment. I gave it to 
the father ; he thanked me cordially, and we drank a cup 15 
together in the kitchen, talking of roads, and audiences, 
and hard times. 

When I was going, up got ray old stroller, and off with 
his hat. " I am afraid," said he, " that Monsieur will 
think me altogether a beggar ; but I have another 20 
demand to make upon him." I began to hate him on 
the spot. " We play again to-night," he went on. " Of 
course, I shall refuse to accept any more money from 
Monsieur and his friends, who have been already so 
liberal. But our programme of to-night is something 25 
truly creditable; and I chng to the idea that Monsieur 
will honour us with his presence." And then, with a 
shrug and a smile : " Monsieur understands — the vanity 
of ajii artist ! " Save the mark ! The vanity of an artist ! 



ijo Inland Voyage 

That is the kind of thing that reconciles me to life : a 
ragged, tipphng, incompetent old rogue, with the manners 
of a gentleman, and the vanity of an artist, to keep up 
his self-respect ! 
5 But the man after my own heart is M. de Vauversin. 
It is nearly two years since I saw him first, and indeed I 
hope I may see him often again. Here is his first pro- 
gramme, as I found it on the breakfast table, and have 
kept it ever since as a rehc of bright days : — 

lo " Mesdames et Messieurs, 

" Mademoiselle Fe7'rario et M. de Vauversin 
auront riionneur de chanter ce soir les rnorceaux sui- 
vants. 

^^Mademoiselle Ferrario chantera — Mignon — Oiseaux 

15 Legers — France — Des Fran^ais dorme7it la — Le chateau 
bleu — Oil voulez-vous aller ? 

" M. de Vauversin — Madame Fontaine et M. Robinet 
— Les plongeurs a cheval — Le ALari mecontent — Tais- 
toi, gamin — Mon voisin V original — Heureux comme ga 

20 — Comme on est trompe.^^ 

They made a stage at one end of the salle-a-manger} 
And what a sight it was to see M. de Vauversin, with a 
cigarette in his mouth, twanging a guitar, and following 
Mademoiselle Ferrario's eyes with the obedient, kindly 
25 look of a dog ! The entertainment wound up with a 
tombola, or auction of, lottery tickets: an admirable 
amusement, with all the excitement of gambling, and no 
1 Dining-room. 



Precy and the Marionettes 131 

hope of gain to make you ashamed of your eagerness ; 
for there, all is loss ; you make haste to be out of pocket ; 
it is a competition who shall lose most money for the 
benefit of M. de Vauversin and Mademoiselle Ferrario. 

M. de Vauversin is a small man, with a great head of 5 
black hair, a vivacious and engaging air, and a smile that 
would be delightful if he had better teeth. He was once 
an actor in the Chdtelet ; but he contracted a nervous 
affection from the heat and glare of the footlights, which 
unfitted him for the stage. At this crisis Mademoiselle 10 
Ferrario, otherwise Mademoiselle Rita of the Alcazar, 
agreed to share his wandering fortunes. " I could never 
forget the generosity of that lady," said he. He wears 
trousers so tight that it has long been a problem to all 
who knew him how he manages to get in and out of 15 
them. He sketches a Httle in water-colours ; he writes 
verses ; he is the most patient of fishermen, and spent 
long days at the bottom of the inn-garden fruitlessly dab- 
bling a line in the clear river. 

You should hear him recounting his experiences over a 20 
bottle of wine ; such a pleasant vein of talk as he has, with 
a ready smile at his own mishaps, and every now and then 
a sudden gravity, like a man who should hear the surf 
roar while he was telling the perils of the deep. For it 
was no longer ago than last night, perhaps, that the re- 25 
ceipts only amounted to a franc and a half, to cover three 
francs of railway fare and two of board ^and lodging. The 
Maire,^ a man worth a million of money, sat in the front 
1 Mayor, 



132 Inland Voyage 

seat, repeatedly applauding Mdlle. Ferrario, and yet gave 
no more than three sous the whole evening. Local au- 
thorities look with such an evil eye upon the strolling artist. 
Alas ! I know it well, who have been myself taken for one, 

5 and pitilessly incarcerated on the strength of the misap- 
prehension. Once, M. de Vauversin visited a commis- 
sary of police for permission to sing. The commissary, 
who was smoking at his ease, politely doffed his hat upon 
the singer's entrance. " Mr. Commissary," he began, *' I 

10 am an artist." And on went the commissary's hat again. 
No courtesy for the companions of Apollo ! " They are 
as degraded as that," said M. de Vauversin, with a sweep 
of his cigarette. 

But what pleased me most was one outbreak of his, 

15 when we had been talking all the evening of the rubs, indig- 
nities, and pinchings of his wandering life. Someone said 
it would be better to have a million of money down, and 
Mdlle. Ferrario admitted that she would prefer that might- 
ily. " Eh bieUj moi non ; — not I," cried de Vauversin, 

20 striking the table with his hand. " If anyone is a failure 
in the world, is it not I ? I had an art, in which I have 
done things well — as well as some — better perhaps than 
others ; and now it is closed against me. I must go about 
the country gathering coppers and singing nonsense. Do 

25 you think I regret my life? Do you think I would rather 
be a fat burgess, like a calf ? Not I ! I have had mo- 
ments when I have been applauded on the boards : I think 
nothing of that ; but I have known in my own mind some- 
times, when I had not a clap from the whole house, that I 



Precy and the Marionettes 133 

had found a true intonation, or an exact and speaking 
gesture ; and then, messieurs, I have known what pleasure 
was, what it was to do a thing well, what it was to be an 
artist. And to know what art is, is to have an interest 
for ever, such as no burgess can find in his petty concerns. 5 
Tenez, messieurs, je vais vous le dire — it is like a reli- 
gion." 

Such, making some allowance for the tricks of memory 
and the inaccuracies of translation, was the profession of 
faith of M. de Vauversin. I have given him his own 10 
name, lest any other wanderer should come across him, 
with his guitar and cigarette, and Mademoiselle Ferrario ! 
for should not all the world delight to honour this un- 
fortunate and loyal follower of the Muses? May Apollo 
send him rimes hitherto undreamed of; may the river be 15 
no longer scanty of her silver fishes to his lure ; may the 
cold not pinch him on long winter rides nor the village 
jack-in-office affront him with unseemly manners ; and 
may he never miss Mademoiselle Ferrario from his side, 
to follow with his dutiful eyes and accompany on the 20 
guitar ! 

The marionettes made a very dismal entertainment. 
They performed a piece called Pyramus and Thisbe, in 
five mortal acts, and all written in Alexandrines fully as 
long as the performers. One marionette was the king ; 25 
another the wicked counsellor ; a third, credited with 
exceptional beauty, represented Thisbe ; and then there 
were guards, and obdurate fathers, and walking gentlemen. 
Nothing particular took place during the two or three acts 



134 Inland Voyage 

that I sat out ; but you will be pleased to learn that the 
unities were properly respected, and the whole piece, with 
one exception, moved in harmony with classical rules. 
That exception was the comic countryman, a lean mari- 
5 onette in wooden shoes, who spoke in prose and in a broad 
patois much appreciated by the audience. He took un- 
constitutional liberties with the person of his sovereign ; 
kicked his fellow marionettes in the mouth with his wooden 
shoes, and whenever none of the versifying suitors were 

lo about, made love to Thisbe on his own account in comic 
prose. 

This fellow's evolutions, and the little prologue, in 
which the showman made a humorous eulogium of his 
troop, praising their indifference to^applause and hisses, 

15 and their single devotion to their art, were the only cir- 
cumstances in the whole affair that you could fancy 
would so much as raise a smile. But the villagers of 
Precy seemed delighted. Indeed, so long as a thing is 
an exhibition, and you pay to see it, it is nearly certain 

20 to amuse. If we were charged so much a head for sun- 
sets, or if God sent round a drum before the hawthorns 
came in flower, what a work should we not make about 
their beauty ! But these things, like good companions, 
stupid people early cease to observe : and the Abstract 

«5 Bagman tittups past in his spring gig, and is positively 
not aware of the flowers along the lane, or the scenery 
of the weather overhead. 



Back to the World 135 



BACK TO THE WORLD 

Of the next two days' sail little remains in my mind, 
and nothing whatever in my note- book. The river 
streamed on steadily through pleasant riverside land- 
scapes. Washerwomen in blue dresses, fishers in blue 
blouses, diversified the green banks; and the relation of 5 
the two colours was like that of the flower and the leaf in 
the forget-me-not. A symphony in forget-me-not ; I 
think Th^ophile Gautier might thus have characterized 
that two days' panorama. The sky was blue and cloud- 
less ; and the sliding surface of the river held up, in 10 
smooth places, a mirror to the heaven and the shores. 
The washerwomen hailed us laughingly ; and the noise 
of trees and water made an accompaniment to our doz- 
ing thoughts, as we fleeted down the stream. 

The great volume, the indefatigable purpose of the 15 
river, held the mind in chain. It seemed now so sure 
of its end, so strong and easy in its gait, like a grown, 
man full of determination. The surf was roaring for it 
on the sands of Havre. 

For my own part, slipping along this moving thorough- 20 
fare in my fiddle-case of a canoe, I also was beginning to 
grow aweary for my ocean. To the civilized man there 
must come, sooner or later, a desire for civilization. I 
was weary of dipping the paddle ; I was weary of living 
on the skirts of Hfe ; I wished to be in the thick of it 25 
once more ; I wished to get to work j I wished to meet 



136 Inland Voyage 

people who understood my own speech, and could meet 
with me on equal terms, as a man, and no longer as a 
curiosity. 

And so a letter at Pontoise decided us, and we drew 
5 up our keels for the last time out of that river of Oise 
that had faithfully piloted them, through rain and sun- 
shine, for so long. For so many miles had this fleet and 
footless beast of burthen charioted our fortunes, that we 
turned our back upon it with a sense of separation. We 

10 had made a long detour out of the world, but now we 
were back in the familiar places, where life itself makes 
all the running, and we are carried to meet adventure 
without a stroke of the paddle. Now we were to return, 
like the voyager in the play, and see what rearrangements 

15 fortune had perfected the while in our surroundings; 
what surprises stood ready made for us at home ; and 
whither and how far the world had voyaged in our 
absence. You may paddle all day long ; but it is when 
you come back at nightfall, and look in at the familiar 

20 room, that you find Love or Death awaiting you beside 
the stove ; and the most beautiful adventures are not 
those we go to seek. 



TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 
IN THE CEVENNES 



CONTENTS 

Travels with a Donkey • page 

Dedication i 

Map 2 

Velay 

The Donkey, the Pack, and the Packsaddle . . 3 

The Green Donkey-driver ..... 10 

I have a Goad 20 

Upper Gevaudan 

A Camp in the Dark .28 

Cheylard and Luc 40 

Our Lady of the Snows 

Father ApoUinaris ....... 46 

The Monks 51 

The Boarders 60 

Upper Gevaudan ( Continued^ 

Across the Goulet 68 

A Night among the Pines 72 

The Country of the Camisards 

Across the Lozere 78 

Pont de Montvert 84 

In the Valley of the Tarn 92 

Florae 103 

In the Valley of the Mimente . . . .106 

The Heart of the Country . . . . .111 

The Last Day 120 

Farewell, Modestine 126 

Notes ........ End of Volume 

ii 



DEDICATION 

My dear Sidney Colvin, 

The journey which this little book is to describe was very 
agreeable and fortunate for me. After an uncouth beginning, 
I had the best of luck to the end. But we are all travellers 
in what John Bunyan calls the wilderness of this world — all, 
too, travellers with a donkey ; and the best that we find in 
our travels is an honest friend. He is a fortunate voyager 
who finds many. We travel, indeed, to find them. They 
are the end and the reward of life. They keep us worthy 
of ourselves ; and when we are alone, we are only nearer to 
the absent. 

Every book is, in an intimate sense, a circular letter to the 
friends of him who writes it. They alone take his meaning ; 
they find private messages, assurances of love, and expres- 
sions of gratitude dropped for them in every corner. The 
public is but a generous patron who defrays the postage. 
Yet, though the letter is directed to all, we have an old and 
kindly custom of addressing it on the outside to one. Of 
what shall a man be proud, if he is not proud of his friends? 
And so, my dear Sidney Colvin, it is with pride that I sign 
myself affectionately yours, 

R. L. S. 



VELAY 

* Many are the mighty things^ 

and nought is more 77iighty 
than man. . . . J/e masters 
by his devices the tenant of 
the fields.^ — Sophocles. 

* Who hath loosed the bands of 

the wild ass P ' — Job. 

THE DONKEY, THE PACK, AND THE 
PACKSADDLE 

In a little place called the Le Monastier, in a pleasant 
highland valley fifteen miles from Le Puy, I spent about 
a month of fine days. Monastier is notable for the mak- 
ing of lace, for drunkenness, for freedom of language, and 
for unparalleled political dissension. There are adherents 5 
of each of the four French parties — Legitimists, Orleanists, 
ImperiaHsts, and RepubHcans — in this little moun- 
tain town ; and they all hate, loathe, decry, and calum- 
niate each other. Except for business purposes, or to 
give each other the lie in a tavern brawl, they have laid lo 
aside even the civility of speech. ' Tis a mere mountain 
Poland. In the midst of this Babylon I found myself a 
rallying-point ; every one was anxious to be kind and 

3 



4 Travels with a Donkey 

helpful to the stranger. This v/as not merely from the 
natural hospitality of mountain people, nor even from the 
surprise with which I was regarded as a man living of his 
own free will in Le Monastier, when he might just as well 
5 have lived anywhere else in this big world ; it arose a good 
deal from my projected excursion southward through the 
Cevennes. A traveller of my sort was a thing hitherto 
unheard of in that district. I was looked upon with con- 
tempt, like a man who should project a journey to the 

lo moon, but yet with a respectful interest, like one setting 
forth for the inclement Pole. All were ready to help in 
my preparations ; a crowd of sympathizers supported me 
at the critical moment of a bargain ; not a step was taken 
but was heralded by glasses round and celebrated by a 

15 dinner or a breakfast. 

It was already hard upon October before I was ready 
to set forth, and at the high altitudes over which my road 
lay there was no Indian summer to be looked for. I was 
determined, if not to camp out, at least to have the means 

20 of camping out in my possession ; for there is nothing 
more harassing to an easy mind than the necessity of 
reaching shelter by dusk, and the hospitaHty of a village 
inn is not always to be reckoned sure by those who trudge 
on foot. A tent, above all for a solitary traveller, is 

25 troublesome to pitch and troublesome to strike again ; and 
even on the march it forms a conspicuous feature in your 
baggage. A sleeping-sack, on the other hand, is always 
ready — you have only to get into it ; it serves a double 
purpose — a bed by night, a portmanteau by day ; and it 



The Donkey, Pack, and Packsaddle 5 

does not advertise your intention of camping out to every 
curious passer-by. This is a huge point. If the camp is 
not secret, it is but a troubled resting-place ; you become 
a public character ; the convivial rustic visits your bedside 
after an early supper ; and you must sleep with one eye 5 
open, and be up before the day. I decided on a sleeping- 
sack ; and after repeated visits to Le Puy, and a deal of 
high living for myself and my advisers, a sleeping-sack 
was designed, constructed, and triumphally brought home. 

This child of my invention was nearly six feet square, 10 
exclusive of two triangular flaps to serve as a pillow by 
night and as the top and bottom of the sack by day. I 
call it ' the sack,' but it was never a sack by more than 
courtesy : only a sort of long roll or sausage, green water- 
proof cart-cloth without and blue sheep's fur within. It 15 
was commodious as a valise, warm and dry for a bed. 
There was luxurious turning room for one ; and at a pinch 
the thing might serve for two. I could bury myself in it 
up to the neck ; for my head I trusted to a fur cap, with 
a hood to fold down over my ears, and a band to pass 20 
under my nose like a respirator ; and in case of heavy 
rain I proposed to make myself a little tent, or tentlet, 
with my waterproof coat, three stones, and a bent branch. 

It will readily be conceived that I could not carry this 
huge package on my own, merely human, shoulders. It 25 
remained to choose a beast of burden. Now, a horse is 
a fine lady among animals, flighty, timid, delicate in eating, 
of tender health ; he is too valuable and too restive to 
be left alone, so that you are chained to your brute as to a 



6 Travels with a Donkey 

fellow galley-slave ; a dangerous road puts him out of his 
wits ; in short, he's an uncertain and exacting ally, and 
adds thirty-fold to the troubles of the voyager. What I 
required was something cheap and small and hardy, and 
5 of a stolid and peaceful temper; and all these requisites 
pointed to a donkey. 

There dwelt an old man in Monastier, of rather unsound 
intellect according to some, much followed by street-boys, 
and known to fame as Father Adam. Father Adam had 

lo a cart, and to draw the cart a diminutive she-ass, not much 
bigger than a dog, the colour of a mouse, with a kindly eye 
and a determined underjaw. There was something neat 
and high-bred, a quakerish elegance, about the rogue that 
hit my fancy on the spot. Our first interview was in 

15 Monastier market-place. To prove her good temper, 
one child after another was set upon her back to ride, 
and one after another went head over heels into the air ; 
until a want of confidence began to reign in youthful 
bosoms, and the experiment was discontinued from a 

20 dearth of subjects. I was already backed by a deputa- 
tion of my friends ; but as if this were not enough, all the 
buyers and sellers came round and helped me in the bar- 
gain ; and the ass and I and Father Adam were the cen- 
tre of a hubbub for near half an hour. At length she 

25 passed into my service for the consideration of sixty-five 
francs and a glass of brandy. The sack had already cost 
eighty francs and two glasses of beer ; so that Modestine, 
as I instantly baptized her, was upon all accounts the 
cheaper article. Indeed, that was as it should be ; for 



{ 



The Donkey, Pack, and Packsaddle 7 

she was only an appurtenance of my mattress, or self- 
acting bedstead on four castors. 

I had a last mterview with Father Adam in a billiard- 
room at the witching hour of dawn, when I administered 
the brandy. He professed himself greatly touched by 5 
the separation, and declared he had often bought white 
bread for the donkey when he had been content with black 
bread for himself ; but this, according to the best authori- 
ties, must have been a flight of fancy. He had a name 
in the village for brutally misusing the ass ; yet it is cer- 10 
tain that he shed a tear, and the tear made a clean mark 
down one cheek. 

By the advice of a fallacious local saddler, a leather pad 
was made for me with rings to fasten on my bundle ; and 
I thoughtfully completed my kit and arranged my toilet. 15 
By way of armoury and utensils, I took a revolver, a little 
spirit-lamp and pan, a lantern and some halfpenny candles, 
a jack-knife, and a large leather flask. The main cargo 
consisted of two entire changes of warm clothing — be- 
sides my travelling wear of country velveteen, pilot-coat, 20 
and knitted spencer — some books, and my railway rug, 
which, being also in the form of a bag, made me a double 
castle for cold nights. The permanent larder was repre- 
sented by cakes of chocolate and tins of Bologna sausage. 
All this, except what I carried about my person, was easily 25 
stowed into the sheepskin bag ; and by good fortune I 
threw in my empty knapsack, rather for convenience of 
carriage than from any thought that I should want it on 
my journey. For more immediate needs, I took a leg of 



8 Travels with a Donkey 

cold mutton, a bottle of Beaujolais, an empty bottle to 
carry milk, an egg-beater, and a considerable quantity of 
black bread and white, like Father Adam, for myself and 
donkey, only in my scheme of things the destinations were 
5 reversed. 

Monastrians, of all shades of thought in politics, had 
agreed in threatening me with many ludicrous misadven- 
tures, and with sudden death in many surprising forms. 
Cold, wolves, robbers, above all the nocturnal practical 

TO joker, were daily and eloquently forced on my attention. 
Yet in these vaticinations,^ the true, patent danger was 
left out. Like Christian, it was from my pack I suffered 
by the way. Before telling my own mishaps, let me, in 
two words, relate the lesson of my experience. If the 

15 pack is well strapped at the ends, and hung at full length 
— not doubled, for your life — across the packsaddle, the 
traveller is safe. The saddle will certainly not fit, such is 
the imperfection of our transitory life; it will assuredly 
topple and tend to overset ; but there are stones on every 

20 roadside, and a man soon learns the art of correcting any 
tendency to overbalance with a well-adjusted stone. 

On the day of my departure I was up a little after five ; 
by six, we began to load the donkey ; and ten minutes 
after, my hopes were in the dust. The pad would not stay 

25 on Modestine's back for half a moment. I returned it to 

its maker, with whom I had so contumelious a passage 

that the street outside was crowded from wall to wall 

with gossips looking on and listening. The pad changed 

1 Predictions. 



The Donkey, Pack, and Packsaddle 9 

hands with much vivacity; perhaps it would be more 
descriptive to say that we threw it at each other's heads ; 
and, It any rate, we were very warm and unfriendly, and 
spoke with a deal of freedom. 

I had a common donkey packsaddle — a barde, as 5 
they call it — fitted upon Modestine ; and once more 
loaded her with my effects. The doubled sack, my pilot- 
coat (for it was warm, and I was to walk in my waist- 
coat), a great bar of black bread, and an open basket 
containing the white bread, the mutton, and the bottles, 10 
were all corded together in a very elaborate system of 
knots, and I looked on the result with fatuous content. 
In such a monstrous deck-cargo, all poised above the don- 
key's shoulders, with nothing below to balance, on a 
brand-new packsaddle that had not yet been worn to 15 
fit the animal, and fastened with brand-new girths that 
might be expected to stretch and slacken by the way, 
even a very careless traveller should have seen disaster 
brewing. That elaborate system of knots, again, was 
the work of too many sympathizers to be very artfully 20 
designed. It is true they tightened the cords with a 
will ; as many as three at a time would have a foot 
against Modestine's quarters, and be hauhng with clenched 
teeth ; but I learned afterwards that one thoughtful per- 
son, without any exercise of force, can make a more solid 25 
job than half a dozen heated and enthusiastic grooms. 
I was then but a novice; even after the misadventure 
of the pad nothing could disturb my security, and I went 
forth from the stable-door as an ox goeth to the slaughter. 



lO Travels with a Donkey 



THE GREEN DONKEY-DRIVER 

The bell of Monastier was just striking nine as I got 
quit of these preliminary troubles and descended the hill 
through the common. As long as I was within sight of 
the windows, a secret shame and the fear of some laugh- 
5 able defeat withheld me from tampering with Modestine. 
She tripped along upon her four small hoofs with a sober 
daintiness of gait ; from time to time she shook her ears 
or her tail ; and she looked so small under the bundle 
that my mind misgave me. We got across the ford with- 

lo out difficulty — there was no doubt about the matter, she 
was docility itself — and once on the other bank, where 
the road begins to mount through pine-woods, I took in 
my right hand the unhallowed staff, and with a quaking 
spirit applied it to the donkey. Modestine brisked up her 

IS pace for perhaps three steps, and then relapsed into her 
former minuet. Another application had the same effect, 
and so with the third. I am worthy the name of an Eng- 
lishman, and it goes against my conscience to lay my hand 
rudely on a female. I desisted, and looked her all over 

20 from head to foot ; the poor brute's knees were trembling 
and her breathing was distressed ; it was plain that she 
could go no faster on a hill. God forbid, thought I, that 
I should brutalize this innocent creature ; let her go at 
her own pace, and let me patiently follow. 

25 What that pace was, there is no word mean enough to 
describe ; it was something as much slower than a walk 



The Green Donkey-driver ii 

as a walk is slower than a run ; it kept me hanging on 
each foot for an incredible length of time ; in five minutes 
it exhausted the spirit and set up a fever in all the muscles 
of the leg. And yet I had to keep close at hand and 
measure my advance exactly upon hers ; for if I dropped 5 
a few yards into the rear, or went on a few yards ahead, 
Modestine came instantly to a halt and began to browse. 
The thought that this was to last from here to Alais nearly 
broke my heart. Of all conceivable journeys, this prom- 
ised to be the most tedious. I tried to tell myself it was 10 
a lovely day ; I tried to charm my foreboding spirit with 
tobacco ; but I had a vision ever present to me of the 
long, long roads, up hill and down dale, and a pair of 
figures ever infinitesimally moving, foot by foot, a yard to 
the minute, and, like things enchanted in a nightmare, 15 
approaching no nearer to the goal. 

In the meantime there came up behind us a tall peas- 
ant, perhaps forty years of age, of an ironical snuffy coun- 
tenance, and arrayed in the green tail-coat of the country. 
He overtook us hand over hand, and stopped to consider 20 
our pitiful advance. 

"Your donkey," says he, " is very old? " 

I told him I believed not. 

Then, he supposed, we had come far. 

I told him we had but newly left Monastier. 25 

" Etvous marchez comme ga ! " cried he ; and, throwing 
back his head, he laughed long and heartily. I watched 
him, half prepared to feel offended, until he had satisfied 
his mirth ; and then, " You must have no pity on these 



12 Travels with a Donkey 

animals," said he ; and, plucking a switch out of a thicket, 
he began to lace Modestine about the sternworks, uttering 
a cry. The rogue pricked up her ears and broke into a 
good round pace, which she kept up without flagging, and 
5 without exhibiting the least symptom of distress, as long 
as the peasant kept beside us. Her former panting and 
shaking had been, I regret to say, a piece of comedy. 

My deus ex inachind, before he left me, supplied some 
excellent, if inhumane, advice ; presented me with the 

lo switch, which he declared she would feel more tenderly 
than my cane ; and finally taught me the true cry or 
masonic word of donkey-drivers, " Proot ! " All the time 
he regarded me with a comical incredulous air, which was 
embarrassing to confront ; and smiled over my donkey- 

is driving, as I might have smiled over his orthography, or 
his green tail-coat. But it was not my turn for the 
moment. 

I was proud of my new lore, and thought I had learned 
the art to perfection. And certainly Modestine did won- 

20 ders for the rest of the forenoon, and I had a breathing 
space to look about me. It was Sabbath ; the mountain 
fields were all vacant in the sunshine ; and as we came 
down through St, Martin de Frugeres, the church was 
crowded to the door, there were people kneeling without 

25 upon the steps, and the sound of the priest's chanting 
came forth out of the dim interior. It gave me a home 
feeling on the spot ; for I am a countryman of the Sab- 
bath, so to speak, and all Sabbath observances, like a 
Scotch accent, strike in me mixed feelings, grateful and 



The Green Donkey-driver 13 

the reverse. It is only a traveller, hurrying by like a 
person from another planet, who can rightly enjoy the 
peace and beauty of the great ascetic feast. The sight 
of the resting country does his spirit good. There is 
something better than music in the wide unusual silence ; 5 
and it disposes him to amiable thoughts, hke the sound 
of a little river or the warmth of sunlight. 

In this pleasant humour I came down the hill to where 
Goudet stands in a green end of a valley, with Chateau 
Beaufort opposite upon a rocky steep, and the stream, 10 
as clear as crystal, lying in a deep pool between them. 
Above and below, you may hear it wimpling over the 
stones, an amiable striphng of a river, which it seems 
absurd to call the Loire. On all sides, Goudet is shut in 
by mountains; rocky foot-paths, practicable at best for 15 
donkeys, join it to the outer world of France ; and the 
men and women drink and swear, in their green corner, 
or look up at the snow-clad peaks in winter from the 
threshold of their homes, in an isolation, you would think, 
like that of Homer's Cyclops. But it is not so ; the post- 20 
man reaches Goudet with the letter-bag ; the aspiring 
youth of Goudet are within a day's walk of the railway at 
Le Pay ; and here in the inn you may find an engraved 
portrait of the host's nephew, R^gis Senac, " Professor of 
Fencing and Champion of the two Americas," a distinc- 25 
tion gained by him, along with the sum of five hundred 
dollars, at Tammany Hall, New York, on the loth April 
1876. 

I hurried over my midday meal, and was early forth 



I4 Travels with a Donkey 

again. But, alas, as we climbed the interminable hill 
upon the other side, " Proot ! " seemed to have lost its 
virtue. I prooted like a lion, I prooted mellifluously Hke a 
sucking-dove ; but Modestine would be neither softened 
5 nor intimidated. She held doggedly to her pace ; noth- 
ing but a blow would move her, and that only for a sec- 
ond. I must follow at her heels, incessantly belabouring. 
A moment's pause in this ignoble toil, and she relapsed 
into her own private gait. I think I never heard of any one 

lo in as mean a situation. I must reach the lake of Bouchet, 
where I meant to camp, before sundown, and, to have 
even a hope of this, I must instantly maltreat this uncom- 
plaining animal. The sound of my own blows sickened 
me. Once, when I looked at her, she had a faint resem- 

15 blance to a lady of my acquaintance who formally loaded 
me with kindness ; and this increased my horror of my 
cruelty. 

To make matters worse, we encountered another don- 
key, ranging at will upon the roadside ; and this donkey 

20 chanced to be a gentleman. He and Modestine met 
nickering for joy, and I had to separate the pair and beat 
down their young romance with a renewed and feverish 
bastinado. If the other donkey had had the heart of a 
male under his hide, he would have fallen upon me tooth 

25 and hoof; and this was a kind of consolation — he was 
plainly unworthy of Modestine's affection. But the inci- 
dent saddened me, as did everything that spoke of my 
donkey's sex. 

It was blazing hot up the valley, windless, with vehe- 



The Green Donkey-driver 15 

ment sun upon my shoulders ; and I had to labour so 
consistently with my stick that the sweat ran into my eyes. 
Every five minutes, too, the pack, the basket, and the 
pilot-coat would take an ugly slew to one side or the 
other ; and I had to stop Modestine, just when I had got 5 
her to a tolerable pace of about two miles an hour, to tug, 
push, shoulder, and readjust the load. And at last, in the 
village of Ussel, saddle and all, the whole hypothec turned 
round and grovelled in the dust below the donkey's belly. 
She, none better pleased, incontinently drew up and 10 
seemed to smile ; and a party of one man, two women, 
and two children came up, and, standing round me in a 
half-circle, encouraged her by their example. 

I had the devil's own trouble to get the thing righted ; 
and the instant I had done so, without hesitation, it 15 
toppled and fell down upon the other side. Judge if I 
was hot ! And yet not a hand was offered to assist me. 
The man, indeed, told me I ought to have a package of 
a different shape. I suggested, if he knew nothing better 
to the point in my predicament, he might hold his tongue. 20 
And the good-natured dog agreed with me smilingly. It 
was the most despicable fix. I must plainly content my- 
self with the pack for Modestine, and take the following 
items for my own share of the portage : a cane, a quart 
flask, a pilot-jacket heavily weighted in the pockets, two 25 
pounds of black bread, and an open basket full of meats 
and bottles. I believe I may say 1 am not devoid of great- 
ness of soul ; for I did not recoil from this infamous bur- 
den. I disposed it. Heaven knows how, so as to be 



i6 



Travels with a Donkey 



mildly portable, and then proceeded to steer Modestine 
through the village. She tried, as was indeed her invari- 
able habit, to enter every house and every court-yard in 
the whole length ; and, encumbered as I was, without a 
5 hand to help myself, no words can render an idea of my 
difficulties. A priest, with six or seven others, was ex- 
amining a church in process of repair, and he and his 
acolytes laughed loudly as they saw my plight. I remem- 
bered having laughed myself when I. had seen good men 

lo struggling with adversity in the person of a jackass, and 
the recollection filled me with penitence. That was in 
my old light days, before this trouble came upon me. 
God knows at least that I shall never laugh again, thought 
I. But O, what a cruel thing is a farce to those engaged 

15 in it ! 

A little out of the village, Modestine, filled with the 
demon, set her heart upon a by-road, and positively re- 
fused to leave it. I dropped all my bundles, and, I am 
ashamed to say, struck the poor sinner twice across the 

20 face. It was pitiful to see her lift up her head with shut 
eyes, as if waiting for another blow. I came very near 
crying ; but I did a wiser thing than that, and sat squarely 
down by the roadside to consider my situation under 
the cheerful influence of tobacco and a nip of brandy. 

25 Modestine, in the meanwhile, munched some black bread 
with a contrite hypocritical air. It was plain that I must 
make a sacrifice to the gods of shipwreck. I threw away 
the empty bottle destined to carry milk ; I threw away 
my own white bread, and, disdaining to act by general 



The Green Donkey-driver 17 

average, kept the black bread for Modestine ; lastly, I 
threw away the cold leg of mutton and the egg-whisk, al- 
though this last was dear to my heart. Thus I found 
room for everything in the basket, and even stowed the 
boating-coat on the top. By means of an end of cord I 5 
slung it under one arm ; and although the cord cut my 
shoulder, and the jacket hung almost to the ground, it 
was with a heart greatly lightened that I set forth again. 

I had now an arm free to thrash Modestine, and cruelly 
I chastised her. If I were to reach the lakeside before 10 
dark, she must bestir her little shanks to some tune. Al- 
ready the sun had gone down into a windy-looking mist ; 
and although there were still a few streaks of gold far off 
to the east on the hills and the black fir-woods, all was 
cold and grey about our onward path. An infinity of 15 
little country by-roads led hither and thither among the 
fields. It was the most pointless labyrinth. I could see 
my destination overhead, or rather the peak that domi- 
nates it ; but choose as I pleased, the roads always ended 
by turning away from it, and sneaking back towards the 20 
valley, or northward along the margin of the hills. The 
faihng light, the waning colour, the naked, unhomely, 
stony country through which I was travelling, threw me 
into some despondency. I promise you, the stick was 
not idle ; I think every decent step that Modestine took 2 5 
must have cost me at least two emphatic blows. There 
was not another sound in the neighbourhood but that of 
my unwearying bastinado. 

Suddenly, in the midst of my toils, the load once more 

TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY — 2 



1 8 Travels with a Donkey 

bit the dust, and, as by enchantment, all the cords were 
simultaneously loosened, and the road scattered with my 
dear possessions. The packing was to begin again from 
the beginning ; and as I had to invent a new and better 
5 system, I do not doubt but I lost half an hour. It began 
to be dusk in earnest as I reached a wilderness of turf 
and stones. It had the air of being a road which should 
lead everywhere at the same time ; and I was falling into 
something not unlike despair when I saw two figures 

lo stalking towards me over the stones. They walked one 
behind the other like tramps, but their pace was remark- 
able. The son led the way, a tall, ill-made, sombre, 
Scotch-looking man; the mother followed, all in her 
Sunday's best, with an elegantly- embroidered ribbon to 

IS her cap, and a new felt hat atop, and proffering, as she 
strode along with kilted petticoats, a string of obscene 
and blasphemous oaths. 

I hailed the son and asked him my direction. He 
pointed loosely west and northwest, muttered an inaudible 

20 comment, and, without slacking his pace for an instant, 
stalked on, as he was going, right athwart my path. The 
mother followed without so much as raising her head. I 
shouted and shouted after them, but they continued to 
scale the hill-side, and turned a deaf ear to my outcries. 

25 At last, leaving Modestine by herself, I was constrained to 
run after them, hailing the while. They stopped as I 
drew near, the mother still cursing ; and I could see she 
was a handsome, motherly, respectable-looking woman. 
The son once more answered me roughly and inaudibly. 



The Green Donkey-driver 19 

and was for setting out again. But this time I simply 
collared the mother, who was nearest me, and, apologizing 
for my violence, declared that I could not let them go 
until they had put me on my road. They were neither 
of them offended — rather mollified than otherwise ; told 5 
me I had only to follow them ; and then the mother asked 
me what I wanted by the lake at such an hour. I replied, 
in the Scotch manner, by inquiring if she had far to go 
herself. She told me, with another oath, that she had an 
hour and a half's road before her. And then, without 10 
salutation, the pair strode forward again up the hill-side 
in the gathering dusk. 

I returned for Modestine, pushed her briskly forward 
and, after a sharp ascent of twenty minutes, reached the 
edge of a plateau. The view, looking back on my day's 15 
journey, was both wild and sad. Mount M^zenc and the 
peaks beyond St. Julien stood out in trenchant gloom 
against a cold glitter in the east ; and the intervening field 
of hills had fallen together into one broad wash of shadow, 
except here and there the outHne of a wooded sugar-loaf in 20 
black, here and there a white irregular patch to represent 
a cultivated farm, and here and there a blot where the 
Loire, the Gazeille, or the Laussonne wandered in a gorge. 

Soon we were on a high-road, and surprise seized on 
my mind as I beheld a village of some magnitude close at 25 
hand ; for I had been told that the neighbourhood of the 
lake was uninhabited except by trout. The road smoked 
in the twilight with children driving home cattle from the 
fields ; and a pair of mounted stride-legged women, hat 



20 Travels with a Donkey 

and cap and all, dashed past me at a hammering trot from 
the canton where they had been to church and market. 
I asked one of the children where I was. At Bouchet St. 
Nicolas, he told me. Thither, about a mile south of my 
5 destination, and on the other side of a respectable sum- 
mit, had these confused roads and treacherous peasantry 
conducted me. My shoulder was cut, so that it hurt 
sharply ; my arm ached like toothache from perpetual 
beating ; I gave up the lake and my design to camp, and 
lo asked for the auberge} 

I HAVE A GOAD 

The auberge of Bouchet St. Nicolas was among the 
least pretentious I have ever visited ; but I saw many 
more of the like upon my journey. Indeed, it was typical 

15 of these French highlands. Imagine a cottage of two 
stories, with a beribh before the door ; the stable and 
kitchen in a suite, so that Modestine and I could hear 
each other dining; furniture of the plainest, earthen 
floors, a single bedchamber for travellers, and that without 

20 any convenience but beds. In the kitchen cooking and 
eating go forward side by side, and the family sleep at 
night. Anyone who has a fancy to wash must do so in 
public at the common table. The food is sometimes 
spare ; hard fish and omelette have been my portion 

25 more than once ; the wine is of the smallest, the brandy 
abominable to man ; and the visit of a fat sow, grouting 
lAn inn. 



I have a Goad 21 

under the table and rubbing against your legs, is no im- 
possible accompaniment to dinner. 

But the people of the inn, in nine cases out often, show 
themselves friendly and considerate. As soon as you 
cross the doors you cease to be a stranger ; and although 5 
these peasantry are rude and forbidding on the highway, 
they show a tincture of kind breeding when you share 
their hearth. At Bouchet, for instance, I uncorked my 
bottle of Beaujolais, and asked the host to join me. He 
would take but little. 10 

'' I am an amateur of such wine, do you see ? " he 
said, "and I am capable of leaving you not enough." 

In these hedge-inns the traveller is expected to eat 
with his own knife; unless he ask, no other will be sup- 
plied : with a glass, a whang of bread, and an iron fork, 15 
the table is completely laid. My knife was cordially 
admired by the landlord of Bouchet, and the spring filled 
him with wonder. 

" I should never have guessed that," he said. " I 
would bet," he added, weighing it in his hand, " that this 20 
cost you not less than five francs." 

When I told him it had cost me twenty, his jaw 
dropped. 

He was a mild, handsome, sensible, friendly old man, 
astonishingly ignorant. His wife, who was not so pleas- 25 
ant in her manners, knew how to read, although I do not 
suppose she ever did so. She had a share of brains and 
spoke with a cutting emphasis, like one who ruled the 
roast. 



22 Travels with a Donkey 

" My man knows nothing," she said, with an angry 
nod ; " he is Hke the beasts." 

And the old gentleman signified acquiescence with his 
^ head. There was no contempt on her part, and no 
5 shame on his ; the facts were accepted loyally, and no 
more about the matter. 

I was tightly cross-examined about my journey; and 
the lady understood in a moment, and sketched out 
what I should put into my book when I got home, 
lo " Whether people harvest or not in such or such a place ; 
if there were forests ; studies of manners ; what, for 
example, I and the master of the house say to you ; the 
beauties of Nature, and all that." And she interrogated 
me with a look. 
15 " It is just that," said I. 

" You see," she added to her husband, " I understood 
that." 

They were both much interested by the story of my 
misadventures. 
20 " In the morning," said the husband, " I will make you 
something better than your cane. Such a beast as that 
feels nothing; it is in the proverb — dur comme un dne ; 
you might beat her insensible with a cudgel, and yet you 
would arrive nowhere." 
25 Something better ! I little knew what he was 
offering. 

The sleeping-room was furnished with two beds. I had 
one ; and I will own I was a little abashed to find a 
young man and his wife and child in the act of mounting 



I have a Goad 23 

into the other. This was my first experience of the sort ; 
and if I am always to feel equally silly and extraneous, I 
pray God it be my last as well. I kept my eye^ to my- 
self, and know nothing of the woman except that she 
had beautiful arms, and seemed no whit abashed by 5 
my appearance. As a matter of fact, the situation was 
more trying to me than to the pair. A pair keep each 
other in countenance ; it is the single gentleman who has 
to blush. But 1 could not help attributing my sentiments 
to the husband, and sought to conciliate his tolerance 10 
with a cup of brandy from my flask. He told me that 
he was a cooper of Alais travelling to St. Etienne in 
search of work, and that in his spare moments he followed 
the fatal calling of a maker of matches. Me he readily 
enough divined to be a brandy merchant. 15 

I was up first in the morning (Monday, September 23d), 
and hastened my toilet guiltily, so as to leave a clear 
field for madam, the cooper's wife. I drank a bowl of 
milk, and set off to explore the neighbourhood of Bouchet. 
It was perishing cold, a grey, windy, wintry morning ; 20 
misty clouds flew fast and low ; the wind piped over the 
naked platform ; and the only speck of colour was away 
behind Mount Mezenc and the eastern hills, where the 
sky still wore the orange of the dawn. 

It was five in the morning, and four thousand feet 25 
above the sea ; and I had to bury my hands in my 
pockets and trot. People were trooping out to the la- 
bours of the field by twos and threes, and all turned round 
to stare upon the stranger. I had seen them coming 



24 Travels with a Donkey- 

back last night, I saw them going afield again ; and there 
was the life of Bouchet in a nutshell. 

When I came back to the inn for a bit of breakfast, 
the landlady was in the kitchen combing out her daugh- 
5 ter's hair ; and I made her my compliments upon its 
beauty. 

"O no," said the mother; "it is not so beautiful as it 
ought to be. Look, it is too fine." 

Thus does a wise peasantry console itself under adverse 
lo physical circumstances, and, by a startling democratic pro- 
cess, the defects of the majority decide the type of beauty. 

"And where," said I, "is monsieur? " 

"The master of the house is upstairs," she answered, 
" making you a goad." 
15 Blessed be the man who invented goads ! Blessed the 
innkeeper of Bouchet St. Nicolas, who introduced me to 
their use ! This plain wand, with an eighth of an inch 
of pin, was indeed a sceptre when he put it in my hands. 
Thenceforward Modestine was my slave. A prick, and she 
20 passed the most inviting stable-door. A prick, and she 
broke forth into a gallant little trotlet that devoured the 
miles. It was not a remarkable speed, when all was said ; 
and we took four hours to cover ten miles at the best of 
it. But what a heavenly change since yesterday ! No 
25 more wielding of the ugly cudgel ; no more flailing with 
an aching arm ; no more broadsword exercise, but a dis- 
creet and gentlemanly fence. And what although now 
and then a drop of blood should appear on Modestine's 
mouse-coloured wedge-like rump? I should have pre- 



I have a Goad 25 

ferred it otherwise, indeed ; but yesterday's exploits had 
purged my heart of all humanity. The perverse little 
devil, since she would not be taken with kindness, must 
even go with pricking. 

It was bleak and bitter cold, and, except a cavalcade 5 
of stride-legged ladies and a pair of post-runners, the 
road was dead solitary all the way to Pradelles. I scarce 
remember an incident but one. A handsome foal with 
a bell about his neck came charging up to us upon a 
stretch of common, sniffed the air martially as one about 10 
to do great deeds, and, suddenly thinking otherwise in 
his green young heart, put about and galloped off as he 
had come, the bell tinkling in the wind. For a long 
while afterwards I saw his noble attitude as he drew up, 
and heard the note of his bell ; and when I struck the 15 
high-road, the song of the telegraph wires seemed to con- 
tinue the same music. 

Pradelles stands on a hill-side, high above the Allier, 
surrounded by rich meadows. They were cutting after- 
math on all sides, which gave the neighbourhood, this 20 
gusty autumn morning, an untimely smell of hay. On 
the opposite bank of the Allier the land kept mounting 
for miles to the horizon : a tanned and sallow autumn 
landscape, with black blots of fir-wood and white roads 
wandering through the hills. Over all this the clouds 25 
shed a uniform and purplish shadow, sad and somewhat 
menacing, exaggerating height and distance, and throw- 
ing into still higher relief the twisted ribbons of the high- 
way. It was a cheerless prospect, but one stimulating to 



26 Travels with a Donkey 

a traveller. For I was now upon the limit of Velay, and 
all that I beheld lay in another country — wild G^vaudan, 
mountainous, uncultivated, and but recently disforested 
from terror of the wolves. 
5 Wolves, alas, like bandits, seem to flee the traveller's ad- 
vance ; and you may trudge through all our comfortable 
Europe, and not meet with an adventure worth the name. 
But here, if anywhere, a man was on the frontiers of hope. 
For this was the land of the ever-memorable Beast, 

10 the Napoleon Buonaparte of wolves. What a career was 
his ! He lived ten months at free quarters in G^vaudan 
and Vivarais/ he ate women and children and " shepherd- 
esses celebrated for their beauty " ; he pursued armed 
horsemen ; he has been seen at broad noonday chasing a 

15 post-chaise and outrider along the king's high-road, and 
chaise and outrider fleeing before him at the gallop. He 
was placarded like a political offender, and ten thousand 
francs were offered for his head. And yet, when he was 
shot and sent to Versailles, behold ! a common wolf, and 

20 even small for that. " Though I could reach from pole 
to pole," sang Alexander Pope ; the little corporal shook 
Europe ; and if all wolves had been as this wolf, they 
would have changed the history of man. M. Elie Ber- 
thet has made him the hero of a novel, which I have read, 

25 and do not wish to read again. 

I hurried over my lunch, and was proof against the 
landlady's desire that I should visit our Lady of Pradelles, 
"who performed many miracles, although she was of 
wood"; and before three-quarters of an hour I was 



I have a Goad 27 

goading Modestine down the steep descent that leads to 
Langogne on the AlHer. On both sides of the road, in 
big dusty fields, farmers were preparing for next spring. 
Every fifty yards a yoke of great-necked stolid oxen were 
patiently haling at the plough. I saw one of these mild 5 
foraiidable servants of the glebe, who took a sudden in- 
terest in Modestine and me. The furrow down which he 
was journeying lay at an angle to the road, and his head 
was solidly fixed to the yoke like those of caryatides be- 
low a ponderous cornice ; but he screwed round his big 10 
honest eyes and followed us with a ruminating look, until 
his master bade him turn the plough and proceed to re- 
ascend the field. From all these furrowing ploughshares, 
from the feet of oxen, from a labourer here and there 
who was breaking the dry clods with a hoe, the wind 15 
carried away a thin dust like so much smoke. It was a 
fine, busy, breathing, rustic landscape ; and as I continued 
to descend, the highlands of G^vaudan kept mounting 
in front of me against the sky. 

I had crossed the Loire the day before ; now I was to 20 
cross the Allier ; so near are these two confluents in 
their youth. Just at the bridge of Langogne, as the long- 
promised rain was beginning to fall, a lassie of some 
seven or eight addressed me in the sacramental phrase, 
" D'oii ^st que vous venez ? " She did it with so high an 25 
air that she set me laughing ; and this cut her to the 
quick. She was evidently one who reckoned on respect, 
and stood looking after me in silent dudgeon, as I crossed 
the bridge and entered the county of G^vaudan. 



28 Travels with a Donkey 



UPPER GEVAUDAN 

* The way also here was very weari- 
some through dirt and slabbi- 
ness ; nor was there on all this 
ground so mtich as one inn or 
victualling-house wherein to 
refresh the feebler sort^ 

— " Pilgrim's Progress." 

A CAMP IN THE DARK 

The next day (Tuesday, September 24th), it was two 
o'clock in the afternoon before I got my journal written 
up and my knapsack repaired, for I was determined to 
carry my knapsack in the future and have no more ado 

5 with baskets ; and half an hour afterwards I set out for 
Le Cheylard I'Eveque, a place on the borders of the 
forest of Mercoire. A man, I was told, should walk there 
in an hour and a half; and I thought it scarce too am- 
bitious to suppose that a man encumbered with a donkey 

10 might cover the same distance in four hours. 

All the way up the long hill from Langogne it rained 
and hailed alternately ; the wind kept freshening steadily, 
although slowly ; plentiful hurrying clouds — some drag- 
ging veils of straight rain-shower, others massed and 

15 luminous as though promising snow — careered out of 
the north and followed me along my way. I was soon 
out of the cultivated basin of the Allier, and away from 



A Camp in the Dark 29 

the ploughing oxen, and such Hke sights of the country. 
Moor, heathery marsh, tracts of rock and pines, woods of 
birch all jewelled with the autumn yellow, here and there 
a few naked cottages and bleak fields, — these were the 
characters of the country. Hill and valley followed val- 5 
ley and hill ; the little green and stony cattle-tracks 
wandered in and out of one another, split into three or 
four, died away in marshy hollows, and began again 
sporadically on hill-sides or at the borders of a wood. 

There was no direct road to Cheylard, and it was no 10 
easy affair to make a passage in this uneven country and 
through this intermittent labyrinth of tracks. It must 
have been about four when I struck Sagnerousse, and 
went on my way rejoicing in a sure point of departure. 
Two hours afterwards, the dusk rapidly falling, in a lull of 15 
the wind, I issued from a fir-wood where I had long been 
wandering, and found, not the looked-for village, but an- 
other marish bottom among rough-and-tumble hills. For 
some time past I had heard the ringing of cattle-bells 
ahead ; and now, as I came out of the skirts of the 20 
wood, I saw near upon a dozen cows and perhaps as 
many more black figures, which I conjectured to be 
children, although the mist had almost unrecognizably 
exaggerated their forms. These were all silently following 
each other round and round in a circle, now taking hands, 25 
now breaking up with chains and reverences. A dance 
of children appeals to very innocent and lively thoughts ; 
but, at nightfall on the marshes, the thing was eerie and 
fantastic to behold. Even I, who am well enough read 



JO Travels with a Donkey 

in Herbert Spencer, felt a sort of silence fall for an instant 
on my mind. The next, I was pricking Modestine for- 
ward, and guiding her like an unruly ship through the 
open. In a path, she went doggedly ahead of her own 
5 accord, as before a fair wind ; but once on the turf or 
among heather, and the brute became demented. The 
tendency of lost travellers to go round in a circle was de- 
veloped in her to the degree of passion, and it took all the 
steering I had in me to keep even a decently straight 

lo course through a single field. 

While I was thus desperately tacking through the bog, 
children and cattle began to disperse, until only a pair of 
girls remained behind. From these I sought direction on 
my path. The peasantry in general were but little dis- 

15 posed to counsel a wayfarer. One old devil simply re- 
tired into his house, and barricaded the door on my 
approach ; and I might beat and shout myself hoarse, he 
turned a deaf ear. Another, having given me a direction 
which, as I found afterwards, I had misunderstood, com- 

20 placently watched me going wrong without adding a sign. 
He did not care a stalk of parsley if I wandered all night 
upon the hills ! As for these two girls, they were a pair 
of impudent sly sluts, with not a thought but mischief. 
One put out her tongue at me, the other bade me follow 

25 the cows ; and they both giggled and jogged each other's 
elbows. The Beast of Gevaudan ate about a hundred 
children of this district ; I began to think of him with 
sympathy. 

Leaving the girls, I pushed on through the bog, and 



A Camp in the Dark 31 

got into another wood and upon a well-marked road. It 
grew darker and darker. Modestine, suddenly beginning 
to smell mischief, bettered the pace of her own accord, 
and from chat time forward gave me no trouble. It was 
the first sign of intelhgence I had occasion to remark in 5 
her. At the same time, the wind freshened into half a 
gale, and another heavy discharge of rain came flying up 
out of the north. At the other side of the wood I sighted 
some red windows in the dusk. This was the hamlet of 
Fouzilhic; three houses on a hill-side, near a wood of 10 
birches. Here I found a delightful old man, who came a 
little way with me in the rain to put me safely on the 
road for Cheylard. He would hear of no reward ; but 
shook his hands above his head almost as if in menace, 
and refused volubly and shrilly, in unmitigated /<7/^/j-. 15 

All seemed right at last. My thoughts began to turn 
upon dinner and a fireside, and my heart was agreeably 
softened in my bosom. Alas, and I was on the brink of 
new and greater miseries ! Suddenly, at a single swoop, 
the night fell. I have been abroad in many a black 20 
night, but never in a blacker. A glimmer of rocks, a 
glimmer of the track where it was well beaten, a certain 
fleecy density, or night within night, for a tree, — this was 
all that I could discriminate. The sky was simply dark- 
ness overhead ; even the flying clouds pursued their way 25 
invisibly to human eyesight. I could not distinguish my 
hand- at arm's length from the track, nor my goad, at the 
same distance, from the meadows or the sky. 

Soon the road that I was following split, after the 



32 Travels with a Donkey 

fashion of the country, into three or four in a piece of 
rocky meadow. Since Modestine had shown such a fancy 
for beaten roads, I tried her instinct in this predicament. 
But the instinct of an ass is what might be expected from 
5 the name ; in half a minute she was clambering round 
and round among some boulders, as lost a donkey as you 
would wish to see. I should have camped long before 
had I been properly provided ; but as this was to be so 
short a stage, I had brought no wine, no bread for myself 

10 and little over a pound for my lady-friend. Add to this, 
that I and Modestine were both handsomely wetted by 
the showers. But now, if I could have found some 
water, I should have camped at once in spite of all. 
Water, however, being entirely absent, except in the form 

15 of rain, I determined to return to Fouzilhic, and ask a 
guide a little further on my way — "a little farther lend 
thy guiding hand." 

The thing was easy to decide, hard to accomplish. In 
this sensible roaring blackness I was sure of nothing but 

20 the direction of the wind. To this I set my face, the 
road had disappeared, and I went across country, now in 
marshy opens, now baffled by walls unscalable to Modes- 
tine, until I came once more in sight of some red 
windows. This time they were differently disposed. It 

25 was not Fouzilhic, but Fouzilhac, a hamlet little distant 
from the other in space, but worlds away in the spirit of 
its inhabitants. I tied Modestine to a gate, and groped 
forward, stumbling among rocks, plunging mid-leg in 
bog, until I gained the entrance of the village. In the 



A Camp in the Dark ^3 

first lighted house there was a woman who would not open 
to me. She could do nothing, she cried to me through 
the door, being alone and lame ; but if I would apply at 
the next house, there was a man who could help me if he 
had a mind. 5 

They came to the next door in force, a man, two 
women, and a girl, and brought a pair of lanterns to ex- 
amine the wayfarer. The man was not ill-looking, but 
had a shifty smile. He leaned against the door-post, and 
heard me state my case. All I asked was a guide as far lo 
as Cheylard. 

" Cest qtce, voyez-voits, il fait noir,'' said he. 

I told him that was just my reason for requiring 
help. 

"I understand that," said he, looking uncomfortable ; 15 
" mais — c'est — de la peine T 

I was wilHng to pay, I said. He shook his head. I 
rose as high as ten francs ; but he continued to shake his 
head. '' Name your own price, then," said I. 

" Ce 11' est pas ^a,'' he said at length, and with evident 20 
difficulty ; " but I am not going to cross the door — mais 
je ne s or tirai pas de la ported 

I grew a little warm, and asked him what he proposed 
that I should do. 

"Where are you going beyond Cheylard?" he asked 25 
by way of answer. 

" That is no affair of yours," I returned, for I was not 
going to indulge his bestial curiosity ; " it changes nothing 
in my present predicament." 

TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY — 3 



34 Travels with a Donkey 

'' Cest vrai, f^," he acknowledged, with a laugh ; 
" out, c' est vrai. Et d'oii venez vous? " 

A better man than I might have felt nettled. 

" O," said I, " I am not going to answer any of your 

5 questions, so you may spare yourself the trouble of putting 

them. I am late enough already ; I want help. If you 

will not guide me yourself, at least help me to find some 

one else who will." 

" Hold on," he cried suddenly. " Was it not you who 
lo passed in the meadow while it was still day? " 

" Yes, yes," said the girl, whom I had not hitherto rec- 
ognized ; " it was monsieur ; I told him to follow the cow." 
"As for you, mademoiselle," said I, "you are a 
farceuseT ^ 
15 " And," added the man, " what the devil have you done 
to be still here?" 

What the devil, indeed! But there I was. "The 
great thing," said I, " is to make an end of it ; " and 
once more proposed that he should help me to find a 
20 guide. 

" Cest que ^' he said again, ^^ c'est que — il fait noiry 
"Very well," said I ; " take one of your lanterns." 
" No," he cried, drawing a thought backward, and again 
intrenching himself behind one of his former phrases ; 
25 " I will not cross the door." 

I looked at him. I saw unaffected terror struggling on 
his face with unaffected shame ; he was smiling pitifully 
and wetting his lip with his tongue, like a detected school- 
1 A joker. 



A Camp in the Dark 35 

boy. I drew a brief picture of my state, and asked him 
what I was to do. 

" I don't know," he said ; " I will not cross the door." 

Here was the Beast of G6vaudan, and no mistake. 

" Sir," said I, with my most commanding manners, 5 
"you are a coward." 

And with that I turned my back upon the family party, 
who hastened to retire within their fortifications ; and 
the famous door was closed again, but not till I had over- 
heard the sound of laughter. Filia barbara pater bar- 10 
barior. Let me say it in the plural : the Beasts of 
Gevaudan. 

The lanterns had somewhat dazzled me, and I ploughed 
distressfully among stones and rubbish-heaps. All the 
other houses in the village were both dark and silent ; 15 
and though I knocked at here and there a door, my 
knocking was unanswered. It was a bad business ; I gave 
up Fouzilhac with my curses. The rain had stopped, and 
the wind, which still kept rising, began to dry my coat 
and trousers. " Very well," thought I, " water or no 20 
water, I must camp." But the first thing was to return 
to Modestine. I am pretty sure I was twenty minutes 
groping for my lady in the dark ; and if it had not been 
for the unkindly services of the bog, into which I once 
more stumbled, I might have still been groping for her at 25 
the dawn. My next business was to gain the shelter of a 
wood, for the wind was cold as well as boisterous. How, 
in this well-wooded district, I should have been so long 
in finding one, is another of the insoluble mysteries of 



^6 Travels with a Donkey 

this day's adventures ; but I will take my oath that I put 
near an hour to the discovery. 

At last black trees began to show upon my left, and, 
suddenly crossing the road, made a cave of unmitigated 
5 blackness right in front. I call it a cave without exag- 
geration; to pass below that arch of leaves was like 
entering a dungeon. I felt about until my hand encoun- 
tered a stout branch, and to this I tied Modestine, a 
haggard, drenched, desponding donkey. Then I low- 

lo ered my pack, laid it along the wall on the margin of 
the road, and unbuckled the straps. I knew well enough 
where the lantern was ; but where were the candles ? I 
groped and groped among the tumbled articles, and, 
while I was thus groping, suddenly I touched the spirit- 

15 lamp. Salvation ! This would serve my turn as well. 
The wind roared unwearyingly among the trees : I 
could hear the boughs tossing and the leaves churning 
through half a mile of forest ; yet the scene of my en- 
campment was not only as black as the pit, but admir- 

20 ably sheltered. At the second match the wick caught 
flame. The light was both livid and shifting ; but it cut 
me off from the universe, and doubled the darkness of 
the surrounding night. 

I tied Modestine more conveniently for herself, and 

25 broke up half the black bread for her supper, reserving the 
other half against the morning. Then I gathered what 
I should want within reach, took off my wet boots and 
gaiters, which I wrapped in my waterproof, arranged my 
knapsack for a pillow under the flap of my sleeping-bag. 



A Camp in the Dark 37 

insinuated my limbs into the interior, and buckled my- 
self in like a bambino. I opened a tin of Bologna 
sausage and broke a cake of chocolate, and that was all 
I had to eat. It may sound offensive, but I ate them 
together, bite by bite, by way of bread and meat. All I 5 
had to wash down this revolting mixture was neat brandy : 
a revolting beverage in itself. But I was rare and 
hungry ; ate well, and smoked one of the best cigarettes 
in my experience. Then I put a stone in my straw hat, 
pulled the flap of my fur cap over my neck and eyes, 10 
put my revolver ready to my hand, and snuggled well 
down among the sheepskins. 

I questioned at first if I were sleepy, for I felt my 
heart beating faster than usual, as if with an agreeable 
excitement to which my mind remained a stranger. But 15 
as soon as my eyelids touched, that subtle glue leaped be- 
tween them, and they would no more come separate. The 
wind among the trees was my lullaby. Sometimes it 
sounded for minutes together with a steady even rush, 
not rising nor abating ; and again it would swell and burst 20 
like a great crashing breaker, and the trees would patter 
me all over with big drops from the rain of the afternoon. 
Night after night, in my own bedroom in the country, I 
have given ear to this perturbing concert of the wind 
among the woods ; but whether it was a difference in the 25 
trees, or the lie of the ground, or because I was myself 
outside and in the midst of it, the fact remains that the 
wind sang to a different tune among these woods of 
G^vaudan. I hearkened and hearkened; and mean- 



38 Travels with a Donkey 

while sleep took gradual possession of my body and 
subdued my thoughts and senses ; but still my last wak- 
ing effort was to listen and distinguish, and my last con- 
scious state was one of wonder at the foreign clamour in 
5 my ears. 

Twice in the course of the dark hours — once 
when a stone galled me underneath the sack, and again 
when the poor patient Modestine, growing angry, pawed 
and stamped upon the road — I was recalled for a brief 

10 while to consciousness, and saw a star or two overhead, 
and the lace-like edge of the foliage against the sky. When 
I awoke for the third time (Wednesday, September 25th), 
the world was flooded with a blue hght, the mother of the 
dawn. I saw the leaves labouring in the wind and the rib- 

15 bon of the road ; and, on turning my head, there was Mo- 
destine tied to a beech, and standing half across the path in 
an attitude of inimitable patience. I closed my eyes again, 
and set to thinking over the experience of the night, I 
was surprised to find how easy and pleasant it had been, 

20 even in this tempestuous weather. The stone which 
annoyed me would not have been there, had I not been 
forced to camp blindfold in the opaque night ; and I had 
felt no other inconvenience except when my feet encoun- 
tered the lantern or the second volume of Peyrat's Pas- 

25 tors of the Desert among the mixed contents of my 
sleeping-bag; nay more, I had felt not a touch of cold, 
and awakened with unusually lightsome and clear 
sensations. 

With that, I shook myself, got once more into my boots 



A Camp in the Dark 39 

and gaiters, and breaking up the rest of the bread for 
Modestine, strolled about to see in what part of the world 
I had awakened. Ulysses, left on Ithaca, and with a mind 
unsettled by the goddess, was not more pleasantly astray. 
I have been after an adventure all my life, a pure dispas- 5 
sionate adventure, such as befell early and heroic voyag- 
ers ; and thus to be found by morning in a random wood- 
side nook in G6vaudan — not knowing north from south, 
as strange to my surroundings as the first man upon the 
earth, an inland castaway — was to find a fraction of my 10 
day-dreams realized. I was on the skirts of a little wood 
of birch, sprinkled with a few beeches ; behind, it ad- 
joined another wood of fir ; and in front it broke up 
and went down in open order into a shallow and meadowy 
dale. All around there were bare hill-tops, some near, 15 
some far away, as the perspective closed or opened, but 
none apparently much higher than the rest. The wind 
huddled the trees. The golden specks of autumn in the 
birches tossed shiveringly. Overhead the sky was full of 
strings and shreds of vapour, flying, vanishing, reappear- 20 
ing, and turning about an axis like tumblers, as the wind 
hounded them through heaven. It was wild weather and 
famishing cold. I ate some chocolate, swallowed a mouth- 
ful of brandy, and smoked a cigarette before the cold 
should have time to disable my fingers. And by the time 25 
I had got all this done, and had made my pack and bound 
it on the packsaddle, the day was tiptoe on the threshold 
of the east. We had not gone many steps along the lane, 
before the sun, still invisible to me, sent a glow of gold 



40 Travels with a Donkey 

over some cloud mountains that lay ranged along the 
eastern sky. 

The wind had us on the stern, and hurried us bitingly 

forward. I buttoned myself into my coat, and walked on 

5 in a pleasant frame of mind with all men, when suddenly, 

at a corner, there was Fouzilhic once more in front of me. 

Nor only that, but there was the old gentleman who had 

■ escorted me so far the night before, running out of his 

house at sight of me, with hands upraised in horror. 
lo "My poor boy! " he cried, "what does this mean?" 
I told him what had happened. He beat his old hands 
like clappers in a mill, to think how lightly he had let me 
go ; but when he heard of the man of Fouzilhac, anger 
and depression seized upon his mind. 
15 "This time, at least," said he, "there shall be no mis- 
take." 

And he limped along, for he was very rheumatic, for 
about half a mile, and until I was almost within sight of 
Cheylard, the destination I had hunted for so long. 

CHEYLARD AND LUC 

20 Candidly, it seemed little worthy of all this searching. 
A few broken ends of village, with no particular street, 
but a succession of open places heaped with logs and 
fagots ; a couple of tilted crosses, a shrine to our Lady 
of all Graces on the summit of a little hill ; and all this, 

25 upon a rattling highland river, in the corner of a naked 
valley. What went ye out for to see ? thought I to my- 



Cheylard and Luc 41 

self. But the place had a life of its own. I found a board 
commemorating the Hberalities of Cheylard for the past 
year, hung up, like a banner, in the diminutive and tottering 
church. In 1877, it appeared, the inhabitants subscribed 
forty-eight francs ten centimes for the " Work of the Prop- 5 
agation of the Faith." Some of this, I could not help 
hoping, would be applied to my native land. Cheylard 
scrapes together halfpence for the darkened souls in 
Edinburgh ; while Balquidder and Dunrossness bemoan 
the ignorance of Rome. Thus, to the high entertainment 10 
of the angels, do we pelt each other with evangelists, like 
schoolboys bickering in the snow. 

The inn was again singularly unpretentious. The whole 
furniture of a not ill-to-do family was in the kitchen : the 
beds, the cradle, the clothes, the plate-rack, the meal- 15 
chest, and the photograph of the parish priest. There 
were five children, one of whom was set to its morning 
prayers at the stair-foot soon after my arrival, and a sixth 
would erelong be forthcoming. I was kindly received by 
these good folk. They were much interested in my mis- 20 
adventure. The wood in which I had slept belonged to 
them ; the man of Fouzilhac they thought a monster of 
iniquity, and counselled me warmly to summon him at 
law — " because I might have died." The good wife was 
horror-stricken to see me drink over a pint of uncreamed 25 
milk. 

" You will do yourself an evil," she said. " Permit me 
to boil it for you." 

After I had begun the morning on this delightful 



42 Travels with a Donkey 

liquor, she having an infinity of things to arrange, I was 
permitted, nay requested, to make a bowl of chocolate 
for myself. My boots and gaiters were hung up to dry, 
and, seeing me trying to write my journal on my knee, 
5 the eldest daughter let down a hinged table in the chim- 
ney-corner for my convenience. Here I wrote, drank my 
chocolate, and finally ate an omelette before I left. The 
table was thick with dust ; for, as they explained, it was 
not used except in winter weather. I had a clear look 

lo up the vent, through brown agglomerations of soot and 
blue vapour, to the sky ; and whenever a handful of twigs 
was thrown on to the fire, my legs were scorched by the 
blaze. 

The husband had begun life as a muleteer, and when I 

15 came to charge Modestine showed himself full of the 
prudence of his art. " You will have to change this pack- 
age," said he ; " it ought to be in two parts, and then you 
might have double the weight." 

I explained that I wanted no more weight ; and for no 

20 donkey hitherto created would I cut my sleeping-bag in 
two. 

" It fatigues her, however," said the innkeeper ; " it 
fatigues her greatly on the march. Look." 

Alas, there were her two forelegs no better then raw 

25 beef on the inside, and blood was running from under her 
tail. They told me when I left, and I was ready to believe 
it, that before a few days I should come to love Modestine 
like a dog. Three days had passed, we had shared some 
misadventures, and my heart was still as cold as a potato 



Cheylard and Luc ' 43 

towards my beast of burden. She was pretty enough to 
look at ; but then she had given proof of dead stupidity, 
redeemed indeed by patience, but aggravated by flashes 
of sorry and ill-judged light-heartedness. And I own 
this new discovery seemed another point against her. 5 
What the devil was the good of a she-ass if she could not 
carry a sleeping-bag and a few necessaries? I saw the 
end of the fable rapidly approaching, when I should have 
to carry Modestine. y^sop was the man to know the 
world ! I assure you I set out with heavy thoughts upon 10 
my short day's march. 

It was not only heavy thoughts about Modestine that 
weighted me upon the way ; it was a leaden business al- 
together. For first, the wind blew so rudely that I had 
to hold on the pack with one hand from Cheylard to 15 
Luc ; and second, my road lay through one of the most 
beggarly countries in the world. It was like the worst 
of the Scotch Highlands, only worse ; cold, naked, and 
ignoble, scant of wood, scant of heather, scant of life. 
A road and some fences broke the unvarying waste, and 20 
the line of the road was marked by upright pillars, to 
serve in time of snow. 

Why anyone should desire to visit either Luc or Chey- 
lard is more than my much-inventing spirit can suppose. 
For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I 25 
travel for travel's sake. The great affair is to move ; to feel 
the needs and hitches of our life more nearly ; to come 
down off this feather-bed of civilization, and find the 
globe granite underfoot and strewn with cutting flints. 



44 • Travels with a Donkey 

Alas, as we get up in life, and are more preoccupied 
with our affairs, even a holiday is a thing that must be 
worked for. To hold a pack upon a packsaddle against 
a gale out of the freezing north is no high industry, but it 
5 is one that serves to occupy and compose the mind. 
And when the present is so exacting, who can annoy him- 
self about the future ? 

I came out at length above the AlHer. A more un- 
sightly prospect at this season of the year it would be 

lo hard to fancy. Shelving hills rose round it on all sides, 
here dabbled with wood and fields, there rising to peaks 
alternately naked and hairy with pines. The colour 
throughout was black or ashen, and came to a point in 
the ruins of the castle of Luc, which pricked up impu- 

isdently from below my feet, carrying on a pinnacle a tall 
white statue of Our Lady, which, I heard with interest, 
weighed fifty quintals,^ and was to be dedicated on the 
6th of October. Through this sorry landscape trickled 
the AUier and a tributary of nearly equal size, which 

2o came down to join it through a broad nude valley in 
Vivarais. The weather had somewhat hghtened, and 
the clouds massed in squadron ; but the fierce wind still 
hunted them through heaven, and cast great ungainly 
splashes of shadow and sunlight over the scene. 

25 Luc itself was a straggling double file of houses wedged 

between hill and river. It had no beauty, nor was there 

any notable feature, save the old castle overhead with its 

fifty quintals of brand-new Madonna. But the inn was 

1 A modern French quintal is 220 pounds. 



Cheylard and Luc 45 

clean and large. The kitchen, with its two box-beds 
hung with clean check curtains, with its wide stone chim- 
ney, its chimney-shelf four yards long and garnished with 
lanterns and religious statuettes, its array of chests and 
pair of ticking clocks, was the very model of what a 5 
kitchen ought to be ; a melodrama kitchen, suitable for 
bandits or noblemen in disguise. Nor was the scene 
disgraced by the landlady, a handsome, silent, dark old 
woman, clothed and hooded in black like a nun. Even 
the public bedroom had a character of its own, with the 10 
long deal tables and benches, where fifty might have 
dined, set out as for a harvest-home, and the three box- 
beds along the wall. In one of these, lying on straw and 
covered with a pair of table-napkins, did I do penance 
all night long in goose-flesh and chattering teeth, and 15 
sigh from time to time as I awakened for my sheepskin 
sack and the lee of some great wood. 



46 Travels with a Donkey 



OUR LADY OF THE SNOWS 

* / behold 
The House, the Brotherhood austere — 
And what am I, that I am here ? ' 
— Matthew Arnold. 

FATHER APOLLINARIS 

Next morning (Thursday, 26th September) I took the 
road in a new order. The sack was no longer doubled, 
but hung at full length across the saddle, a green sausage 
six feet long with a tuft of blue wool hanging out of either 

5 end. It was more picturesque, it spared the donkey, and, 
as I began to see, it would insure stability, blow high, 
blow low. But it was not without a pang that I had so 
decided. For although I had purchased a new cord, and 
made all as fast as I was able, I was. yet jealously uneasy 

[o lest the flaps should tumble out and scatter my effects 
along the line of march. 

My way lay up the bald valley of the river, along the 
march of Vivarais and Gevaudan. The hills of G^vaudan 
on the right were a little more naked, if anything, than 

15 those of Vivarais upon the left, and the former had a 
monopoly of a low dotty underwood that grew thickly in 
the gorges and died out in solitary burrs upon the shoulders 
and the summits. Black bricks of fir-wood were plastered 
here and there upon both sides, and here and there were 



Father Apollinaris 47 

cultivated fields. A railway ran beside the river ; the 
only bit of railway in G^vaudan, although there are many 
proposals afoot and surveys being made, and even, as 
they tell me, a station standing ready built in Mende. A 
year or two hence and this may be another world. The 5 
desert is beleaguered. Now may some Languedocian 
Wordsworth turn the sonnet into patois : " Mountains and 
vales and floods, heard ye that whistle? " 

At a place called La Bastide I was directed to leave the 
river, and follow a road that mounted on the left among 10 
the hills of Vivarais, the modern Ardeche ; for I was now 
come within a little way of my strange destination, the 
Trappist monastery of our Lady of the Snows. The sun 
came out as I left the shelter of a pine-wood, and I be- 
held suddenly a fine wild landscape to the south. High 15 
rocky hills, as blue as sapphire, closed the view, and be- 
tween these lay ridge upon ridge, heathery, craggy, the 
sun glittering on veins of rock, the underwood clambering 
in the hollows, as rude as God made them at the first. 
There was not a sign of man's hand in all the prospect ; 20 
and indeed not a trace of his passage, save where genera- 
tion after generation had walked in twisted foot-paths, in 
and out among the beeches, and up and down upon the 
channelled slopes. The mists, which had hitherto beset 
me, were now broken into clouds, and fled swiftly and 25 
shone brightly in the sun. I drew a long breath. It was 
grateful to come, after so long, upon a scene of some at- 
traction for the human heart. I own I like definite form 
in what my eyes are to rest upon ; and if landscapes were 



48 Travels with a Donkey- 

sold, like the sheets of characters of my boyhood, one 
penny plain and twopence coloured, I should go the 
length of twopence every day of my life. 

But if things had grown better to the south, it was still 

5 desolate and inclement near at hand. A spidery cross on 
every hill-top marked the neighbourhood of a religious 
house ; and a quarter of a mile beyond, the outlook south- 
ward opening out and growing bolder with every step, a 
white statue of the Virgin at the corner of a young plan- 

10 tation directed the traveller to our Lady of the Snows. 
Here, then, I struck leftward, and pursued my way, driv- 
ing my secular donkey before me, and creaking in my 
secular boots and gaiters, towards the asylum of silence. 
I had not gone very far ere the wind brought to me the 

15 clanging of a bell, and somehow, I can scarce tell why, 
my heart sank within me at the sound. I have rarely ap- 
proached anything with more unaffected terror than the 
monastery of our Lady of the Snows. This it is to have 
had a Protestant education. And suddenly, on turning 

20 a corner, fear took hold on me from head to foot — slavish 
superstitious fear ; and though I did not stop in my ad- 
vance, yet I went on slowly, like a man who should have 
passed a bourne unnoticed, and strayed into the country 
of the dead. For there upon the narrow new-made road, 

25 between the stripling pines, was a mediaeval friar, fighting 
with a barrowful of turfs. Every Sunday of my childhood 
I used to study the Hermits of Marco Sadeler — enchant- 
ing prints, full of wood and field and mediaeval landscapes, 
as large as a county, for the imagination to go a travelling 



Father Apollinaris 49 

in ; and here, sure enough, was one of Marco Sadeler's 
heroes. He was robed in white hke any spectre, and 
the hood falling back, in the instancy of his contention 
with the barrow, disclosed a pate as bald and yellow as a 
skull. He might have been buried any time these thou- 5 
sand years, and all the lively parts of him resolved into 
earth and broken up with the farmer's harrow. 

I was troubled besides in my mind as to etiquette. 
Durst I address a person who was under a vow of 
silence ? Clearly not. But drawing near, I doffed my 10 
cap to him with a far-away superstitious reverence. He 
nodded back, and cheerfully addressed me. Was I 
going to the monastery? Who was I? An EngHsh- 
man? Ah, an Irishman, then? 

" No," I said, " a Scotsman." 15 

A Scotsman? Ah, he had never seen a Scotsman 
before. And he looked me all over, his good, honest, 
brawny countenance shining with interest, as a boy might 
look upon a Hon or an alligator. From him I learned 
with disgust that I could not be received at our Lady of 2c 
the Snows; I might get a meal, perhaps, but that was 
all. And then, as our talk ran on, and it turned out that 
I was not a pedlar, but a Hterary man, who drew land- 
scapes and was going to write a book, he changed his 
manner of thinking as to my reception (for I fear they 25 
respect persons even in a Trappist monastery), and told 
me I must be sure to ask for the Father Prior, and state 
my case to him in full. On second thoughts he deter- 
mined to go down with me himself ; he thought he could 

TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY — 4 



50 Travels with a Donkey 

manage for me better. Might he say that I was a geog- 
rapher? 

No ; I thought, in the interests of truth, he positively 
might not. 
5 "Very well, then " (with disappointment), '' an author." 

It appeared he had been in a seminary with six young 
Irishmen, all priests long since, who had received news- 
papers and kept him informed of the state of ecclesias- 
tical affairs in England. And he asked me eagerly after 
10 Dr. Pusey, for whose conversion the good man had 
continued ever since to pray night and morning. 

" I thought he was very near the truth," he said ; " and 
he will reach it yet ; there is so much virtue in prayer." 

He must be a stiff ungodly Protestant who can take 

15 anything but pleasure in this kind and hopeful story. 

While he was thus near the subject, the good father asked 

me if I were a Christian ; and when he found I was not, 

or not after his way, he glossed it over with great 

goodwill. 

20 The road which we were following, and which this 

stalwart father had made with his own two hands within 

the space of a year, came to a corner, and showed us 

some white buildings a Httle further on beyond the wood. 

At the same time, the bell once more sounded abroad. 

25 We were hard upon the monastery. Father Apollinaris 

(for that was my companion's name) stopped me. 

" I must not speak to you down there," he said. *' Ask 
for the Brother Porter, and all will be well. But try to 
see me as you go out again through the wood, where I 



The Monks 



SI 



may speak to you. I am charmed to have made your 
acquaintance." 

And then suddenly raising his arms, flapping his 
fingers, and crying out twice, " I must not speak, I must 
not speak ! " he ran away in front of me and disappeared 5 
into the monastery door. 

I own this somewhat ghastly eccentricity went a good 
way to revive my terrors. But where one was so good and 
simple, why should not all be alike ? I took heart of grace, 
and went forward to the gate as fast as Modestine, who 10 
seemed to have a disaffection for monasteries, would per- 
mit. It was the first door, in my acquaintance of her, 
which she had not shown an indecent haste to enter. I 
summoned the place in form, though with a quaking heart. 
Father Michael, the Father Hospitaller, and a pair of 15 
brown-robed brothers came to the gate and spoke with me 
awhile. I think my sack was the great attraction ; it had 
already beguiled the heart of poor Apollinaris, who had 
charged me on my life to show it to the Father Prior. 
But whether it was my address, or the sack, or the idea 20 
speedily pubKshed among that part of the brotherhood 
who attend on strangers that I was not a pedlar after all, 
I found no difficulty as to my reception. Modestine was 
led away by a layman to the stables, and I and my pack 
were received into our Lady of the Snows. 25 

THE MONKS 

Father Michael, a pleasant, fresh-faced, smiling man, 
perhaps of thirty-five, took me to the pantry, and gave 



52 Travels with a Donkey 

me a glass of liqueur to stay me until dinner. We had 
some talk, or rather I should say he listened to my prattle 
indulgently enough, but with an abstracted air, like a 
spirit with a thing of clay. And truly when I remembered 
5 that I descanted principally on my appetite, and that it 
must have been by that time more than eighteen hours 
since Father Michael had so much as broken bread, I 
can well understand that he would find an earthly savour 
in my conversation. But his manner, though superior, 

10 was exquisitely gracious ; and I find I have a lurking 
curiosity as to Father Michael's past. 

The whet administered, I was left alone for a httle in the 
monastery garden. This is no more than the main court, 
laid out in sandy paths and beds of parti-coloured dahhas, 

15 and with a fountain and a black statue of the Virgin in the 
centre. The buildings stand around it four-square, bleak, 
as yet unseasoned by the years and weather, and with no 
other features than a belfry and a pair of slated gables. 
Brothers in white, brothers in brown, passed silently along 

20 the sanded alleys ; and when I first came out, three 
hooded monks were kneeling on the terrace at their 
prayers. A naked hill commands the monastery upon 
one side, and the wood commands it on the other. It 
lies exposed to wind ; the snow falls off and on from Oc- 

25 tober to May and sometimes lies six weeks on end ; but if 
they stood in Eden, with a climate like heaven's, the 
buildings themselves would offer the same wintry and 
cheerless aspect ; and for my part, on this wild September 
day, before I was called to dinner, I felt chilly in and out. 



The Monks ^^ 

When I had eaten well and heartily, Brother Ambrose, 
a hearty conversable Frenchman (for all those who wait 
on strangers have the liberty to speak), led me to a litde 
room in that part of the building which is set apart for 
MM. les retraitants. It was clean and whitewashed, and 5 
furnished with strict necessaries, a crucifix, a bust of 
the late Pope, the Imitation in French, a book of religious 
meditations, and the Life of Elizabeth Seton, evangeHst, it 
would appear, of North America and of New England in 
particular. As far as my experience goes, there is a fair to 
field for some more evangelization in these quarters ; but 
think of Cotton Mather ! I should Hke to give him a 
reading of this little work in heaven, where I hope he 
dwells ; but perhaps he knows all that already, and much 
more; and perhaps he and Mrs. Seton are the dearest 15 
friends, and gladly unite their voices in the everlasting 
psalm. Over the table, to conclude the inventory of the 
room, hung a set of regulations for MM. les retraitants : 
what services they should attend, when they were to tell 
their beads or meditate, and when they were to rise and 20 
go to rest. At the foot was a notable N.B. : " Le temps 
litre est employe a Pexamen de conscience^ a la confession, 
dfairede bonnes resolutions, &c." To make good resolu- 
tions, indeed ! You might talk as fruitfully of making 
the hair grow on your head. 25 

I had scarce explored my niche when Brother Ambrose 
returned. An English boarder, it appeared, would hke 
to speak with me. I professed my wiUingness, and the 
friar ushered in a fresh, young, little Irishman of fifty, a 



54 Travels with a Donkey 

deacon of the Church, arrayed in strict canonicals, and 
wearing on his head what, in default of knowledge, I can 
only call the ecclesiastical shako.^ He had lived seven 
years in retreat at a convent of nuns in Belgium, and now 
5 five at our Lady of the Snows ; he never saw an English 
newspaper ; he spoke French imperfectly, and had he 
spoken it like a native, there was not much chance of 
conversation where he dwelt. With this, he was a man 
eminently sociable, greedy of news, and simple-minded 

lo like a child. If I was pleased to have a guide about the 
monastery, he was no less delighted to see an English 
face and hear an English tongue. 

He showed me his own room, where he passed his 
time among breviaries, Hebrew bibles, and the Waverley 

IS novels. Thence he led me to the cloisters, into the 
chapter-house, through the vestry, where the brothers' 
gowns and broad straw hats were hanging up, each with 
his religious name upon a board, — names full of legen- 
dary suavity and interest, such as Basil, Hilarion, Raphael, 

20 or Pacifique ; into the library, where were all the works of 
Veuillot and Chateaubriand, and the Odes et Ballades, 
if you please, and even Moliere, to say nothing of in- 
numerable fathers and a great variety of local and general 
historians. Thence my good Irishman took me round 

25 the workshops, where brothers bake bread, and make 
cartwheels, and take photographs ; where one superin- 
tends a collection of curiosities, and another a gallery 
of rabbits. For in a Trappist monastery each monk has 
1 A military cap. 



The Monks ^s 

an occupation of his own choice, apart from his religious 
duties and the general labours of the house. Each must 
sing in the choir, if he has a voice and ear, and join in 
the haymaking if he has a hand to stir ; but in his private 
hours, although he must be occupied, he may be occupied 5 
on what he hkes. Thus I was told that one brother 
was engaged with Hterature; while Father ApoUinaris 
busies himself in making roads, and the Abbot employs 
himself in binding books. It is not so long since this 
Abbot was consecrated, by the way ; and on that occa- 10 
sion, by a special grace, his mother was permitted to enter 
the chapel and witness the ceremony of consecration. A 
proud day for her to have a son a mitred abbot ; it makes 
you glad to think they let her in. 

In all these journeyings to and fro, many silent fathers 15 
and brethren fell in our way. Usually they paid no more 
regard to our passage than if we had been a cloud ; but 
sometimes the good deacon had a permission to ask of 
them, and it was granted by a pecuhar movement of the 
hands, almost like that of a dog's paws in swimming, or 20 
refused by the usual negative signs, and in either case 
with lowered eyelids and a certain air of contrition, as of 
a man who was steering very close to evil. 

The monks, by special grace of their Abbot, were still 
taking two meals a day ; but it was already time for their 25 
grand fast, which begins somewhere in September and 
lasts till Easter, and during which they eat but once in 
the twenty-fours, and that at two in the afternoon, twelve 
hours after they have begun the toil and vigil of the day. 



56 Travels with a Donkey 

Their meals are scanty, but even of these they eat spar- 
ingly ; and though each is allowed a small carafe of wine, 
many refrain from this indulgence. Without doubt, the 
most of mankind grossly overeat themselves ; our meals 
5 serve not only for support, but as a hearty and natural 
diversion from the labour of life. Although excess 
may be hurtful, I should have thought this Trappist regi- 
men defective. And I am astonished, as I look back, 
at the freshness of face and cheerfulness of manner of all 

10 whom I beheld. A happier nor a healthier company I 
should scarce suppose that I have ever seen. As a 
matter of fact, on this bleak upland, and with the inces- 
sant occupation of the monks, life is of an uncertain 
tenure, and death no infrequent visitor, at our Lady of 

15 the Snows. This, at least, was what was told me. But 
if they die easily, they must live healthily in the mean- 
time, for they seemed all firr» of flesh and high in colour ; 
and the only morbid sign that I could observe, an unusual 
brilliancy of eye, was one that served rather to increase 

20 the general impression of vivacity and strength. 

Those with whom I spoke were singularly sweet tem- 
pered, with what I can only call a holy cheerfulness in 
air and conversation. There is a note, in the direction to 
visitors, telHng them not to be offended at the curt speech 

25 of those who wait upon them, since it is proper to monks 
to speak Httle. The note might have been spared ; to a 
man the hospitallers were all brimming with innocent talk, 
and, in my experience of the monastery, it was easier to 
begin than to break off a conversation. With the excep- 



The Monks 57 

tion of Father Michael, who was a man of the world, they 
showed themselves full of kind and healthy interest in all 
sorts of subjects — in politics, in voyages, in my sleeping- 
sack — and not without a certain pleasure in the sound 
of their own voices. 5 

As for those who are restricted to silence, I can only 
wonder how they bear their solemn and cheerless isola- 
tion. And yet, apart from any view of mortification, I 
can see a certain policy, not only in the exclusion of 
women, but in this vow of silence. I have had some ex- 10 
perience of lay phalansteries,^ of an artistic, not to say a 
bacchanahan, character ; and seen more than one associ- 
ation easily formed and yet more easily dispersed. With 
a Cistercian rule, perhaps they might have lasted longer. 
In the neighbourhood of women it is but a touch-and-go 15 
association that can be formed among defenceless men ; 
the stronger electricity is sure to triumph ; the dreams of 
boyhood, the schemes of youth, are abandoned after an 
interview of ten minutes, and the arts and sciences, and 
professional male joUity, deserted at once for two sweet 20 
eyes and a caressing accent. And next after this, the 
tongue is the great divider. 

I am almost ashamed to pursue this wordly criticism of 
a religious rule ; but there is yet another point in which 
the Trappist order appeals to me as a model of wisdom. 25 
By two in the morning the clapper goes upon the bell, and 
so on, hour by hour, and sometimes quarter by quarter, 
till eight, the hour of rest ; so infinitesimally is the day 

^ Co-operative associations where members live in common. 



58 Travels with a Donkey 

divided among different occupations. The man who 
keeps rabbits, for example, hurries from his hutches to the 
chapel, the chapter-room, or the refectory, all day long : 
every hour he has an office to sing, a duty to perform ; 
5 from two, when he rises in the dark, till eight, when he 
returns to receive the comfortable gift of sleep, he is upon 
his feet and occupied with manifold and changing busi- 
ness. I know many persons, worth several thousands in 
the year, who are not so fortunate in the disposal of their 

10 lives. Into how many houses would not the note of the 
monastery bell, dividing the day into manageable portions, 
bring peace of mind and healthful activity of body ? We 
speak of hardships, but the true hardship is to be a dull 
fool, and permitted to mismanage life in our own dull and 

15 foolish manner. 

From this point of view, we may perhaps better under- 
stand the monk's existence. A long novitiate and every 
proof of constancy of mind and strength of body is re- 
quired before admission to the order ; but I could not 

20 find that many were discouraged. In the photographer's 
studio, which figures so strangely among the outbuildings, 
my eye was attracted by the portrait of a young fellow in 
the uniform of a private of foot. This was one of the 
novices, who came of the age for service, and marched 

25 and drilled and mounted guard for the proper time among 
the garrison of Algiers. Here was a man who had surely 
seen both sides of life before deciding ; yet as soon as he 
was set free from service he returned to finish his 
novitiate. 



The Monks 59 

This austere rule entitles a man to heaven as by right. 
When the Trappist sickens, he quits not his habit; he 
lies in the bed of death as he has prayed and laboured in 
his frugal and silent existence ; and when the Liberator 
comes, at the very moment, even before they have carried 5 
him in his robe to lie his little last in the chapel among 
continual chantings, joy-bells break forth, as if for a 
marriage, from the slated belfry, and proclaim through- 
out the neighbourhood that another soul has gone to God. 

At night, under the conduct of my kind Irishman, 1 10 
took my place in the gallery to hear compline and Salve 
Regina, with which the Cistercians bring every day to a 
conclusion. There were none of those circumstances 
which strike the Protestant as childish or as tawdry in 
the public offices of Rome. A stern simplicity, height- 15 
ened by the romance of the surroundings, spoke directly 
to the heart. I recall the whitewashed chapel, the 
hooded figures in the choir, the lights alternately oc- 
cluded and revealed, the strong manly singing, the silence 
that ensued, the sight of cowled heads bowed in prayer, 20 
and then the clear trenchant beating of the bell, breaking 
in to show that the last office was over and the hour of 
sleep had come ; and when I remember, I am not sur- 
prised that I made my escape into the court with some- 
what whirling fancies, and stood like a man bewildered 25 
in the windy starry night. 

But I was weary ; and when I had quieted my spirits 
with Elizabeth Seton's memoirs — a dull work — the cold 
and the raving of the wind among the pines — for my 



6o Travels with a Donkey 

room was on that side of the monastery which adjoins 
the woods — disposed me readily to slumber. I was 
wakened at black midnight, as it seemed, though it was 
really two in the morning, by the first stroke upon the 
5 bell. All the brothers were then hurrying to the chapel ; 
the dead in life, at this untimely hour, were already be- 
ginning the uncomforted labours of their day. The dead 
in life — there was a chill reflection. And the words of 
a French song came back into my memory, telling of the 
lo best of our mixed existence : 

" Que t'as de belles filles, 
Girofle ! 
Girofla ! 
Que t'as de belles filles, 
15 V Amour les compter a ! " 

And I blessed God that I was free to wander, free to 
hope, and free to love. 

THE BOARDERS 

But there was another side to my residence at our 
Lady of the Snows. At this late season there were not 

20 many boarders ; and yet I was not alone in the public 
part of the monastery. This itself is hard by the gate, 
with a small dining-room on the ground-floor, and a 
whole corridor of cells similar to mine upstairs. I have 
stupidly forgotten the board for a regular ret?'aitant; but 

25 it was somewhere between three and five francs a day, 



The Boarders 6i 

and I think most probably the first. Chance visitors 
like myself might give what they chose as a free-will offer- 
ing, but nothing was demanded. I may mention that 
when I was going away, Father Michael refused twenty 
francs as excessive. I explained the reasoning which led 5 
me to offer him so much ; but even then, from a curious 
point of honour, he would not accept it with his own 
hand. " I have no right to refuse for the monastery," he 
explained, " but I should 'prefer if you would give it to 
one of the brothers." 10 

I had dined alone, because I arrived late ; but at supper 
I found two other guests. One was a country parish 
priest, who had walked over that morning from the seat 
of his cure near Mende to enjoy four days of solitude and 
prayer. \He was a grenadier in person, with the hale 15 
colour and circular wrinkles of a peasant ; and as he com- 
plained much of how he had been impeded by his skirts 
upon the march, I have a vivid fancy portrait of him, 
striding along, upright, big-boned, with kilted cassock, 
through the bleak hills of G^vaudan. The other was a 20 
short, grizzhng, thick-set man, from forty-five to fifty, 
dressed in tweed with a knitted spencer, and the red ribbon 
of a decoration in his button-hole. This last was a hard 
person to classify. He was an old soldier, who had seen 
service and risen to the rank of commandant ; and he 25 
retained some of the brisk decisive manners of the camp. 
On the other hand, as soon as his resignation was accepted, 
he had come to our Lady of the Snows as a boarder, and, 
after a brief experience of its ways, had decided to remain 



62 Travels with a Donkey 

as a novice. Already the new life was beginning to 
modify his appearance ; already he had acquired somewhat 
of the quiet and smiling air of the brethren ; and he was 
as yet neither an officer nor a Trappist, but partook of the 
5 character of each. And certainly here was a man in an 
interesting nick of hfe. Out of the noise of cannon and 
trumpets, he was in the act of passing into this still country 
bordering on the grave, where men sleep nightly in their 
grave-clothes, and, like phantoms, communicate by signs. 

lo At supper we talked politics. I make it my business, 
when I am in France, to preach political goodwill and 
moderation, and to dwell on the example of Poland, much 
as some alarmists in England dwell on the example of 
Carthage. The priest and the Commandant assured me 

15 of their sympathy with all I said, and made a heavy sigh- 
ing over the bitterness of contemporary feeling. 

" Why, you cannot say anything to a man with which 
he does not absolutely agree," said I, " but he flies up at 
you" in a temper." 

20 They both declared that such a state of things was anti- 
christian. 

While we were thus agreeing, what should my tongue 
stumble upon but a word in praise of Gambetta's modera- 
tion. The old soldier's countenance was instantly suffused 

25 with blood ; with the palms of his hands he beat the table 
like a naughty child. 

^^ Comment, monsieur?''^ he shouted. ^^ Coftunent? 
Gambetta moderate? Will you dare to justify these 
words?" 



The Boarders 63 

But the priest had not forgotten the tenor of our talk. 
And suddenly, in the height of his fury, the old soldier 
found a warning look directed on his face ; the absurdity 
of his behaviour was brought home to him in a flash ; 
and the storm came to an abrupt end, without another 5 
word. 

It was only in the morning, over our coffee (Friday, 
September 2 7th), that this couple found out I was a heretic. 
I suppose I had misled them by some admiring expres- 
sions as to the monastic life around us; and it was only 10 
by a point-blank question that the truth came out. I had 
been tolerantly used, both by simple Father Apollinaris 
and astute Father Michael ; and the good Irish deacon, 
when he heard of my religious weakness, had only patted 
me upon the shoulder and said, "You must be a Catholic 15 
and come to heaven." But I was now among a different 
sect of orthodox. These two men were bitter and upright 
and narrow, like the worst of Scotsmen, and indeed, upon 
my heart, I fancy they were worse. The priest snorted 
aloud like a battle-horse. 20 

" Ei vous pretendez niourir dans cette espece de croy- 
ance?''^ he demanded; and there is no type used by 
mortal printers large enough to qualify his accent. 

I humbly indicated that I had no design of changing. 

But he could not away with such a monstrous attitude. 25 
" No, no," he cried; *' you must change. You have come 
here, God has led you here, and you must embrace 
the opportunity." 

I made a slip, in policy ; I appealed to the family affec- 



64 Travels with a Donkey 

tions, though I was speaking to a priest and a soldier, 
two classes of men circumstantially divorced from the 
kind and homely ties of life. 

"Your father and mother?" cried the priest. "Very 
5 well ; you will convert them in their turn when you go 
home." 

I think I see my father's face ! I would rather tackle 
the GsetuHan lion in his den than embark on such an 
enterprise against the family theologian. 

10 But now the hunt was up ; priest and soldier were in 
full cry for my conversion ; and the Work of the Propa- 
gation of the Faith, for which the people of Cheylard 
subscribed forty-eight francs ten centimes during 1877, 
was being gallantly pursued against myself. It was an 

IS odd but most effective proselytizing. They never sought 
to convince me in argument, where I might have at- 
tempted some defence ; but took it for granted that I was 
both ashamed and terrified at ray position, and urged me 
solely on the point of time. Now, they said, when God 

20 had led me to our Lady of the Snows, now was the appointed 
hour. 

" Do not be withheld by false shame," observed the 
priest, for my encouragement. 

For one who feels very similarly to all sects of religion, 

25 and who has never been able, even for a moment, to weigh 
seriously the merit of this or that creed on the eternal 
side of things, however much he may see to praise or 
blame upon the secular and temporal side, the situation 
thus created was both unfair and painful. I committed 



The Boarders 6^ 

my second fault in tact, and tried to plead that it was all 
the same thing in the end, and we were all drawing near 
by different sides to the same kind and undiscriminating 
Friend and Father. That, as it seems to lay-spirits, 
would be the only gospel worthy of the name. But 5 
different men think differently ; and this revolutionary 
aspiration brought down the priest with all the terrors of 
the law. He launched into harrowing details of hell. 
The damned, he said — on the authority of a little book 
which he had read not a week before, and which, to add 10 
conviction to conviction, he had fully intended to bring 
along with him in his pocket — werfe to occupy the same 
attitude through all eternity in the midst of dismal tortures. 
And as he thus expatiated, he grew in nobility of aspect 
with his enthusiasm. 15 

As a result the pair concluded that I should seek out 
the Prior, since the Abbot was from home, and lay my 
case immediately before him. 

" CVi-/ man conseil comme ancien militaire'' observed 
the Commandant; *^ et celui de monsieur comme 20 
pretre,^^ 

" Oui,^^ added the cure, sententiously nodding ; '' comme 
ancien militaire — et comme pretre^ 

At this moment, whilst I was somewhat embarrassed 
how to answer, in came one of the monks, a little brown 25 
fellow, as lively as a grig,^ and with an Italian accent, who 
threw himself at once into the contention, but in a milder 
and more persuasive vein, as befitted one of these pleasant 

1 Cricket. 
TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY — 5 



66 Travels with a Donkey 

brethren. Look at hi)n, he said. The rule was very 
hard ; he would have dearly liked to stay in his own 
country, Italy — it was well known how beautiful it was, 
the beautiful Italy ; but then there were no Trappists in 

5 Italy ; and he had a soul to save ; and here he was. 

I am afraid I must be at bottom, what a cheerful 
Indian critic has dubbed me, " a faddling hedonist " ; for 
this description of the brother's motives gave me some- 
what of a shock. I should have preferred to think he had 

lo chosen the Hfe for its own sake, and not for ulterior 
purposes ; and this shows how profoundly I was out of 
sympathy with these good Trappists, even when I was 
doing my best to sympathize. But to the cure the argu- 
ment seemed decisive. 

15 " Hear that ! " he cried. " And I have seen a 
marquis here, a marquis, a marquis " — he repeated 
the holy word three times over — " and other 
persons high in society ; and generals. And here, 
at your side, is this gentleman, who has been so many 

20 years in armies — decorated, an old warrior. And here 
he is, ready to dedicate himself to God." 

I was by this time so thoroughly embarrassed that I 
pleaded cold feet, and made my escape from the apart- 
ment. It was a furious windy morning, with a sky much 

25 cleared, and long and potent intervals of sunshine ; and I 
wandered until dinner in the wild country towards the 
east, sorely staggered and beaten upon by the gale, but 
rewarded with some striking views. 

At dinner the Work of the Propagation of the Faith 



The Boarders 67 

was recommenced, and on this occasion still more dis- 
tastefully to me. The priest asked me many questions as 
to the contemptible faith of my fathers, and received my 
replies with a kind of ecclesiastical titter. 

" Your sect," he said once ; '' for I think you will admit 5 
it would be doing it too much honour to call it a 
religion." 

''As you please, monsieur," said I. ^^ La parole est a 
voiisy 

At length I grew annoyed beyond endurance ; and 10 
although he was on his own ground and, what is more to 
the purpose, an old man, and so holding a claim upon 
my toleration, I could not avoid a protest against this 
uncivil usage. He was sadly discountenanced. 

"I assure you," he said, "I have no inclination to 15 
laugh in my heart. I have no other feeling but interest 
in your soul." 

And there ended my conversion. Honest man ! he 
was no dangerous deceiver ; but a country parson, full of 
zeal and faith. Long may he tread Gevaudan with his 20 
kilted skirts — a man strong to walk and strong to com- 
fort his parishioners in death ! I daresay he would beat 
bravely through a snowstorm where his duty called him ; 
and it is not always the most faithful believer who makes 
the cunningest apostle. 25 



68 Travels with a Donkey 



UPPER GEVAUDAN {continued) 

" The bed 7uas made, the room was Jit, 
By punctual eve the stars were lit ; 
The air was sweet, the water ran ; 
No need tvas there for maid or man. 
When we put up, my ass and I, 
At God^s green caravanserai?'' 

— Old Play. 

ACROSS THE GOULET 

The wind fell during dinner, and the sky remained 
clear ; so it was under better auspices that I loaded 
Modestine before the monastery gate. My Irish friend 
accompanied me so far on the way. As we came through 

5 the wood, there was Pere ApoUinaire hauling his barrow ; 
and he too quitted his labours to go with me for perhaps 
a hundred yards, holding my hand between both of his in 
front of him. I parted first from one and then from the 
other with unfeigned regret, but yet with the glee of the 

o traveller who shakes off the dust of one stage before hurry- 
ing forth upon another. Then Modestine arid I mounted 
the course of the Allier, which here led us back into 
G^vaudan towards its sources in the forest of Mercoire. It 
was but an inconsiderable burn before we left its guid- 

5 ance. Thence, over a hill, our way lay through a naked 
plateau, until we reached Chasserades at sundown. 

The company in the inn-kitchen that night were all 



Across the Goulet 69 

men employed in survey for one of the projected rail- 
ways. They were intelligent and conversable, and we 
decided the future of France over hot wine, until the 
state of the clock frightened us to rest. There were four 
beds in the little upstairs room ; and we slept six. But 5 
I had a bed to myself, and persuaded them to leave the 
window open. 

" He, bourgeois ; il est cinq heures I " was the cry that 
wakened me in the morning (Saturday, September 28th). 
The room was full of a transparent darkness, which dimly 10 
showed me the other three beds and the five different 
nightcaps on the pillows. But out of the window the 
dawn was growing ruddy in a long belt over the hill-tops, 
and day was about to flood the plateau. The hour was 
inspiriting ; and there seemed a promise of calm weather, 15 
which was perfectly fulfilled. I was soon under way with 
Modestine. The road lay for a while over the plateau, and 
then descended through a precipitous village into the 
valley of the Chassezac. This stream ran among green 
meadows, well hidden from the world by its steep banks ; 20 
the broom was in flower, and here and there was a ham- 
let sending up its smoke. 

At last the path crossed the Chassezac upon a bridge, 
and, forsaking this deep hollow, set itself to cross the 
mountain of La Goulet. It wound up through Lestampes 25 
by upland fields and woods of beech and birch, and with 
every corner brought me into an acquaintance with some 
new interest. Even in the gully of the Chassezac my 
ear had been struck by a noise Uke that of a great bass 



yo Travels with a Donkey 

bell ringing at the distance of many miles ; but this, as I 
continued to mount and draw nearer to it, seemed to 
change in character, and I found at length that it came 
from some one leading flocks afield to the note of a 
5 rural horn. The narrow street of Lestampes stood full of 
sheep, from wall to wall — black sheep and white, bleat- 
ing like the birds in spring, and each one accompanying 
himself upon the sheep-bell round his neck. It made 
a pathetic concert, all in treble. A little higher, and 

lo I passed a pair of men in a tree with pruning-hooks, 
and one of them was singing the music of a bourree} 
Still further, and when I was already threading the 
birches, the crowing of cocks came cheerfully up to 
my ears, and along with that the voice of a flute dis- 

15 coursing a deliberate and plaintive air from one of the 
upland villages. I pictured to myself some grizzled, 
apple-cheeked, country schoolmaster fluting in his bit of 
a garden in the clear autumn sunshine. All these beauti- 
ful and interesting sounds filled my heart with an un- 

20 wonted expectation ; and it appeared to me that, once 
past this range which I was mounting, I should descend 
into the garden of the world. Nor was I deceived, for I 
was now done with rains and winds and a bleak country. 
The first part of my journey ended here ; and this was 

25 like an induction of sweet sounds into the other and 
more beautiful. 

There are other degrees of /^j'ness,^ as of punishment, 
besides the capital ; and I was now led by my good 
1 A country dance. 2 State of being doomed. 



Across the Goulet 71 

spirits into an adventure which I relate in the interest of 
future donkey-drivers. The road zigzagged so widely on 
the hill-side that I chose a short cut by map and com- 
pass, and struck through the dwarf woods to catch the 
road again upon a higher level. It was my one serious 5 
conflict with Modestine. She would none of my short 
cut ; she turned in my face, she backed, she reared ; she, 
whom I had hitherto imagined to be dumb, actually 
brayed with a loud hoarse flourish, like a cock crowing 
for the dawn. I plied the goad with one hand ; with 10 
the other, so steep was the ascent, I had to hold on the 
packsaddle. Half a dozen times she was nearly over 
backwards on the top of me ; half a dozen times, from 
sheer weariness of spirit, I was nearly giving it up, and 
leading her down again to follow the road. But I took 15 
the thing as a wager, and fought it through. I was 
surprised, as I went on my way again, by what appeared 
to be chill raindrops falling on my hand, and more than 
once looked up in wonder at the cloudless sky. But it 
was only sweat which came dropping from my brow. 20 

Over the summit of the Goulet there was no marked 
road — only upright stones posted from space to space 
to guide the drovers. The turf underfoot was springy 
and well scented. I had no company but a lark or two, 
and met but one bullock-cart between Lestampes and 25 
Bleymard. In front of me I saw a shallow valley, and 
beyond that the range of the Loz^re, sparsely wooded 
and well enough modelled in the flanks, but straight and 
dull in outUne. There was scarce a sign of culture; 



72 Travels with a Donkey 

only about Bleymard, the white high-road from Villefort 
to Mende traversed a range of meadows, set with spiry 
poplars, and sounding from side to side with the bells of 
flocks and herds. 



A NIGHT AMONG THE PINES 

5 From Bleymard after dinner, although it was already 
late, I set out to scale a portion of the Lozere. An ill- 
marked stony drove-road guided me forward ; and I met 
nearly half-a-dozen bullock-carts descending from the 
woods, each laden with a whole pine-tree for the winter's 

lo firing. At the top of the woods, which do not climb very 
high upon this cold ridge, I struck leftward by a path 
among the pines, until I hit on a dell of green turf, where a 
streamlet made a Httle spout over some stones to serve me 
for a water-tap. " In a more sacred or sequestered bower 

15 . . . nor nymph, nor faunus, haunted." The trees were not 
old, but they grew thickly round the glade : there was no 
outlook, except northeastward upon distant hill-tops, or 
straight upward to the sky ; and the encampment felt se- 
cure and private like a room. By the time I had made my 

20 arrangements and fed Modestine, the day was already be- 
ginning to decHne. I buckled myself to the knees into 
my sack and made a hearty meal ; and as soon as the sun 
went down, I pulled my cap over my eyes and fell asleep. 
Night is a dead monotonous period under a roof; but 

25 in the open world it passes lightly, with its stars and dews 
and perfumes, and the hours are marked by changes in the 



A Night among the Pines 73 

face of Nature. What seems a kind of temporal death to 
people choked between walls and curtains, is only a light 
and Hving slumber to the man who sleeps afield. All 
night long he can hear Nature breathing deeply and freely ; 
even as she takes her rest, she turns and smiles ; and there 5 
is one stirring hour unknown to those who dwell in houses, 
when a wakeful influence goes abroad over the sleeping 
hemisphere, and all the outdoor world are on their feet. 
It is then that the cock first crows, not this time to an- 
nounce the dawn, but like a cheerful watchman speeding 10 
the course of night. Cattle awake on the meadows ; sheep 
break their fast on dewy hill-sides, and change to a new 
lair among the ferns ; and houseless men, who have lain 
down with the fowls, open their dim eyes and behold the 
beauty of the night. 15 

At what inaudible summons, at what gentle touch of 
Nature, are all these sleepers thus recalled in the same 
hour to fife ? Do the stars rain down an influence, or do 
we share some thrill of mother earth below our resting 
bodies ? Even shepherds and old country-folk, who are the 20 
deepest read in these arcana,^ have not a guess as to the 
means or purpose of this nightly resurrection. Towards 
two in the morning they declare the thing takes place ; 
and neither know nor inquire further. And at least it is a 
pleasant incident. We are disturbed in our slumber only, 25 
like the luxurious Montaigne, " that we may the better 
and more sensibly rehsh it." We have a moment to look 
upon the stars, and there is a special pleasure for some 
1 Secrets. 



74 Travels with a Donkey 

minds in the reflection that we share the impulse with all 
outdoor creatures in our neighbourhood, that we have 
escaped out of the Bastille of civilization, and are become, 
for the time being, a mere kindly animal and a sheep of 
5 Nature's flock. 

When that hour came to me among the pines, I wak- 
ened thirsty. My tin was standing by me half full of water. 
I emptied it at a draught ; and feeling broad awake after 
this internal cold aspersion, sat upright to make a cigarette. 

lo The stars were clear, coloured, and jewel-Hke, but not 
frosty. A faint silvery vapour stood for the Milky Way. 
All around me the black fir-points stood upright and stock- 
still. By the whiteness of the packsaddle, I could see 
Modestine walking round and round at the length of her 

15 tether ; I could hear her steadily munching at the sward ; 
but there was not another sound, save the indescribable 
quiet talk of the runnel over the stones. I lay lazily 
smoking and studying the colour of the sky, as we call the 
void of space, from where it showed a reddish grey be- 

20 hind the pines to where it showed a glossy blue-black 
between the stars. As if to be more like a pedlar, I wear 
a silver ring. This I could see faintly shining as I raised 
or lowered the cigarette ; and at each whifl" the inside of 
my hand was illuminated, and became for a second the 

25 highest light in the landscape. 

A faint wind, more like a moving coolness than a stream 
of air, passed down the glade from time to time ; so that 
even in my great chamber the air was being renewed all 
night long. I thought with horror of the inn at Chasse- 



A Night among the Pines 75 

rades and the congregated nightcaps ; with horror of the 
nocturnal prowesses of clerks and students, of hot theatres 
and pass-keys and close rooms. I have not often enjoyed 
a more serene possession of myself, nor felt more inde- 
pendent of material aids. The outer world, from which 5 
we cower into our houses, seemed after all a gentle habit- 
able place ; and night after night a man's bed, it seemed, 
was laid and waiting for him in the fields, where God 
keeps an open house. I thought I had rediscovered one 
of those truths which are revealed to savages and hid from 10 
political economists : at the least, I had discovered a new 
pleasure for myself. And yet even while I was exulting 
in my sohtude I became aware of a strange lack. I wished 
a companion to lie near me in the starlight, silent and not 
moving, but ever within touch. For there is a fellowship 15 
more quiet even than solitude, and which, rightly under- 
stood, is solitude made perfect. And to live out of doors 
with the woman a man loves is of all lives the most com- 
plete and free. 

As I thus lay, between content and longing, a faint noise 20 
stole towards me through the pines. I thought, at first, 
it was the crowing of cocks or the barking of dogs at some 
very distant farm ; but steadily and gradually it took ar- 
ticulate shape in my ears, until I became aware that a 
passenger was going by upon the high-road in the valley, 25 
and singing loudly as he went. There was more of good- 
will than grace in his performance ; but he trolled with 
ample lungs ; and the sound of his voice took hold upon 
the hill-side and set the air shaking in the leafy glens. 



76 Travels with a Donkey 

I have heard people passing by night in sleeping cities ; 
some of them sang ; one, I remember, played loudly on 
the bagpipes. I have heard the rattle of a cart or carriage 
spring up suddenly after hours of stillness, and pass, for 
5 some minutes, within the range of my hearing as I lay 
abed. There is a romance about all who are abroad in 
the black hours, and with something of a thrill we try to 
guess their business. But here the romance was double : 
first, this glad passenger, lit internally with wine, who sent 

10 up his voice in music through the night ; and then I, on 
the other hand, buckled into my sack, and smoking alone 
in the pine-woods between four and five thousand feet 
towards the stars. 

When I awoke again (Sunday, 29th September), many 

15 of the stars had disappeared ; only the stronger companions 
of the night still burned visibly overhead ; and away tow- 
ards the east I saw a faint haze of light upon the horizon, 
such as had been the Milky Way when I was last awake. 
Day was at hand. I lit my lantern, and by its glow-worm 

20 light put on my boots and gaiters ; then I broke up some 
bread for Modestine, filled my can at the water-tap, and 
lit my spirit-lamp to boil myself some chocolate. The 
blue darkness lay long in the glade where I had so sweetly 
slumbered ; but soon there was a broad streak of orange 

25 melting into gold along the mountain tops of Vivarais. 
A solemn glee possessed my mind at this gradual and 
lovely coming in of day. I heard the runnel with delight ; 
I looked round me for something beautiful and un- 
expected; but the still black pine-trees, the hollow glade, 



A Night among the Pines 77 

the munching ass, remained unchanged in figure. Noth- 
ing had altered but the Hght, and that, indeed, shed over 
all a spirit of Hfe and of breathing peace, and moved me 
to a strange exhilaration. 

I drank my water chocolate, which was hot if it was not 5 
rich, and strolled here and there, and up and down about 
the glade. While I was thus delaying, a gush of steady 
wind, as long as a heavy sigh, poured direct out of the 
quarter of the morning. It was cold, and set me sneezing. 
The trees near at hand tossed their black plumes in its 10 
passage ; and I could see the thin distant spires of pine 
along the edge of the hill rock slightly to and fro against 
the golden east. Ten minutes after, the sunlight spread 
at a gallop along the hill-side, scattering shadows and 
sparkles, and the day had come completely. 15 

I hastened to prepare my pack, and tackle the steep 
ascent that lay before me ; but I had something on my 
mind. It was only a fancy ; yet a fancy will sometimes 
be importunate. I had been most hospitably received 
and punctually served in my green caravanserai. The 20 
room was airy, the water excellent, and the dawn had 
called me to a moment. I say nothing of the tapestries 
or the inimitable ceiling, nor yet of the view which I 
commanded from the windows ; but I felt I was in some 
one's debt for all this hberal entertainment. And so it 25 
pleased me, in a half-laughing way, to leave pieces of 
money on the turf as I went along, until I had left enough 
for my night's lodging. I trust they did not fall to some 
rich and churlish drover. 



78 Travels with a Donkey 



THE COUNTRY OF THE 
CAMISARDS 

* We (ravelled in the print of olden wars; 
Yet all the lajid zvas green ; 
And love we found, and peace. 
Where fire and war had been. 
They pass and smile, the children of the sword — 
No more the sword they wield ; 
And O, how deep the corn 
A long the battlefield ! ' 

— W. P. Bannatyne. 

ACROSS THE LOZERE 

The track that I had followed in the evening soon died 
out, and I continued to follow over a bald turf ascent a 
row of stone pillars, such as had conducted me across the 
Goulet. It was already warm. I tied my jacket on the 

5 pack, and walked in my knitted waistcoat. Modestine 
herself was in high spirits, and broke of her own accord, 
for the first time in my experience, into a jolting trot that 
set the oats swashing in the pocket of my coat. The 
view, back upon the northern G^vaudan, extended with 

to every step ; scarce a tree, scarce a house, appeared upon 
the fields of wild hill that ran north, east, and west, all 
blue and gold in the haze and sunlight of the morning. 
A multitude of little birds kept sweeping and twittering 



Across the Lozere 79 

about my path ; they perched on the stone pillars, they 
pecked and strutted on the turf, and I saw them circle 
in volleys in the blue air, and show, from time to time, 
translucent flickering wings between the sun and me. 

Almost from the first moment of my march, a faint 5 
large noise, like a distant surf, had filled my ears. Some- 
times I was tempted to think it the voice of a neighbour- 
ing waterfall, and sometimes a subjective result of the 
utter stillness of the hill. But as I continued to advance, 
the noise increased and became Hke the hissing of an 10 
enormous tea-urn, and at the same time breaths of cool 
air began to reach me from the direction of the summit. 
At length I understood. It was blowing stiffly from the 
south upon the other slope of the Lozere, and every step 
that I took I was drawing nearer to the wind. 15 

Although it had been long desired, it was quite unex- 
pectedly at last that my eyes rose above the summit. A 
step that seemed no way more decisive than many other 
steps that had preceded it — and, " like stout Cortez when, 
with eagle eyes, he stared on the Pacific," I took posses- 20 
sion, in my own name, of a new quarter of the world. 
For behold, instead of the gross turf rampart I had been 
mounting for so long, a view into the hazy air of heaven, 
and a land of intricate blue hills below my feet. 

The Lozere lies nearly east and west, cutting Gevaudan 25 
into two unequal parts ; its highest point, this Pic de 
Finiels, on which I was then standing, rises upwards of 
five thousand six hundred feet above the sea, and in clear 
weather commands a view over all lower Languedoc to 



8o Travels with a Donkey 

the Mediterranean Sea. I have spoken with people who 
either pretended or beheved that they had seen, from the 
Pic de Finiels, white ships sailing by Montpellier and 
Cette. Behind was the upland northern country through 

5 which my way had lain, peopled by a dull race, without 
wood, without much grandeur of hill- form, and famous in 
the past for little beside wolves. But in front of me, half 
veiled in sunny haze, lay a new Gevaudan,rich, picturesque, 
illustrious for stirring events. Speaking largely, I was in 

lo the Cevennes at Monastier, and during all my journey ; 
but there is a strict and local sense in which only this 
confused and shaggy country at my feet has any title to 
the name, and in this sense the peasantry employ the 
word. These are the Cevennes with an emphasis : the 

IS Cevennes of the Cevennes. In that undecipherable 
labyrinth of hills, a war of bandits, a war of wild beasts, 
raged for two years between the Grand Monarch with all 
his troops and marshals on the one hand, and a few thou- 
sand Protestant mountaineers upon the other. A hundred 

20 and eighty years ago, the Camisards held a station even 
on the Lozere, where I stood ; they had an organization, 
arsenals, a military and religious hierarchy ; their affairs 
were '' the discourse of every coffee-house " in London ; 
England sent fleets in their support ; their leaders prophe- 

25 sied and murdered ; with colours and drums, and the 
singing of old French psalms, their bands sometimes 
affronted daylight, marched before walled cities, and 
dispersed the generals of the king ; and sometimes at 
night, or in masquerade, possessed themselves of strong 



Across the Lozere 8i 

castles, and avenged treachery upon their allies and 
cruelty upon their foes. There, a hundred and eighty 
years ago, was the chivalrous Roland, " Count and Lord 
Roland, generalissimo of the Protestants in France," 
grave, silent, imperious, pock-marked ex-dragoon, whom 5 
a lady followed in his wanderings out of love. There was 
CavaHer, a baker's apprentice with a genius for war, 
elected brigadier of Camisards at seventeen, to die at 
fifty-five the English governor of Jersey. There again 
was Castanet, a partisan leader in a voluminous peruke 10 
and with a taste for controversial divinity. Strange gen- 
erals, who moved apart to take counsel with the God of 
Hosts, and fled or offered battle, set sentinels or slept in 
an unguarded camp, as the Spirit whispered to their 
hearts ! And there, to follow these and other leaders, was 15 
the rank and file of prophets and disciples, bold, patient, 
indefatigable, hardy to run upon the mountains, cheering 
their rough fife with psalms, eager to fight, eager to pray, 
listening devoutly to the oracles of brainsick children, 
and mystically putting a grain of wheat among the pewter 20 
balls with which they charged their muskets. 

I had travelled hitherto through a dull district, and in 
the track of nothing more notable than the child-eating 
Beast of G^vaudan, the Napoleon Buonaparte of wolves. 
But now I was to go down into the scene of a romantic 25 
chapter — or, better, a romantic footnote — in the his- 
tory of the world. What was left of all this bygone dust 
and heroism? I was told that Protestantism still survived 
in this head seat of Protestant resistance ; so much the 

TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY — 6 



82 Travels with a Donkey 

priest himself had told me in the monastery parlour. But 
I ^had yet to learn if it were a bare survival, or a lively 
and generous tradition. Again, if in the northern Ce- 
vennes the people are narrow in religious judgements, and 
5 more filled with zeal than charity, what was I to look for 
in this land of persecution and reprisal — in a land where 
the tyranny of the Church produced the Camisard rebel- 
lion, and the terror of the Camisards threw the Catholic 
peasantry into legalized revolt upon the other side, so that 

lo Camisard and Florentin skulked for each other's lives 
among the mountains ? 

Just on the brow of the hill, where I paused to look 
before me, the series of stone pillars came abruptly to an 
end ; and only a litde below, a sort of track appeared and 

15 began to go down a breakneck slope, turning like a cork- 
screw as it went. It led into a valley between falling hills, 
stubbly with rocks Hke a reaped field of corn, and floored 
further down with green meadows. I followed the track 
with precipitation ; the steepness of the slope, the con- 

20 tinual agile turning of the linfe of descent, and the old un- 
wearied hope of finding something new in a new country, 
all conspired to lend me wings. Yet a little lower and 
a stream began, collecting itself together out of many 
fountains, and soon making a glad noise among the hills. 

25 Sometimes it would cross the track in a bit of waterfall, 
with a pool, in which Modestine refreshed her feet. 

The whole descent is like a dream to me, so rapidly 
was it accomplished. I had scarcely left the summit ere 
the valley had closed round my path, and the sun beat 



Across the Lozere S^ 

upon me, walking in a stagnant lowland atmosphere. 
The track became a road, and went up and down in ea^y 
undulations. I passed cabin after cabin, but all seemed 
deserted ; and I saw not a human creature, nor heard 
any sound except that of the stream. I was, however, 5 
in a different country from the day before. The stony 
skeleton of the world was here vigorously displayed to 
sun and air. The slopes were steep and changeful. Oak- 
trees clung along the hills, well grown, wealthy in leaf, 
and touched by the autumn with strong and luminous 10 
colours. Here and there another stream would fall in 
from the right or the left, down a gorge of snow-white and 
tumultuary boulders. The river in the bottom (for it 
was rapidly growing a river, collecting on all hands as it 
trotted on its way) here foamed awhile in desperate rapids, 15 
and there lay in pools of the most enchanting sea-green 
shot with watery browns. As far as I have gone, I have 
never seen a river of so changeful and deUcate a hue ; 
crystal was not more clear, the meadows were not by half 
so green ; and at every pool I saw I felt a thrill of longing 20 
to be out of these hot, dusty, and material garments, and 
bathe my naked body in the mountain air and water. All 
the time as I went on I never forgot it was the Sabbath ; 
the stillness was a perpetual reminder ; and I heard in 
spirit the church-bells clamouring all over Europe, and 25 
the psalms of a thousand churches. 

At length a human sound struck upon my ear — a 
cry strangely modulated between pathos and derision; 
and looking across the valley, I saw a little urchin sitting 



84 Travels with a Donkey 

in a meadow, with his hands about his knees, and dwarfed 
to almost comical smallness by the distance. But the 
rogue had picked me out as I went down the road, from 
oak-wood on to oak-wood, driving Modestine ; and he 
5 made me the compliments of the new country in this trem- 
ulous high-pitched salutation. And as all noises are lovely 
and natural at a sufficient distance, this also, coming 
through so much clean hill air and crossing all the green 
valley, sounded pleasant to my ear, and seemed a thing 
10 rustic, like the oaks or the river. 

A Httle after, the stream that I was following fell into 
the Tarn, at Pont de Montvert of bloody memory. 

PONT DE MONTVERT 

One of the first things I encountered in Pont de Mont- 
vert was, if I remember righdy, the Protestant temple ; 

IS but this was but the type of other novelties. A subtle 
atmosphere distinguishes a town in England from a town 
in France, or even in Scotland. At Carlisle you can see 
you are in one country ; at Dumfries, thirty miles away, 
you are as sure that you are in the other. I should find 

2Q it difficult to tell in what particulars Pont de Montvert 
differed from Monastier or Langogne, or even Bleymard ;. 
but the difference existed, and spoke eloquently to the 
eyes. The place, with its houses, its lanes, its glaring 
river-bed, wore an indescribable air of the South. 

25 All was Sunday bustle in the streets and in the public- 
house, as all had been Sabbath peace among the moun- 



Pont de Montvert 85 

tains. There must have been near a score of us at dinner 
by eleven before noon ; and after I had eaten and 
drunken, and sat writing up my journal, I suppose as 
many more came dropping in one after another, or by 
twos and threes. In crossing the Lozere I had not only 5 
come among new natural features, but moved into the 
territory of a different race. These people, as they hur- 
riedly dispatched their viands in an intricate sword-play 
of knives, questioned and answered me with a degree of 
intelligence which excelled all that I had met, except 10 
among the railway folk at Chasserades. They had open 
telHng faces, and were lively both in speech and manner. 
They not only entered thoroughly into the spirit of my 
little trip, but more than one declared, if he were rich 
enough, he would like to set forth on such another. 15 

Even physically there was a pleasant change. I had 
not seen a pretty woman since I left Monastier, and there 
but one. Now of the three who sat down with me to 
dinner, one was certainly not beautiful — a poor timid 
thing of forty, quite troubled at this roaring table d'hote, 20 
whom I squired and helped to wine, and pledged and . 
tried generally to encourage, with quite a contrary effect ; 
but the other two, both married, were both more hand- 
some than the average of women. And Clarisse? 
What shall I say of Clarisse ? She waited the table with 25 
a heavy placable nonchalance, like a performing cow ; 
her great grey eyes were steeped in amorous languor ; 
her features, although fleshy, were of an original and ac- 
curate design; her mouth had a curlj her nostril spoke 



86 Travels with a Donkey 

of dainty pride ; her cheek fell into strange and interest- 
ing lines. It was a face capable of strong emotion, and, 
with training, it offered the promise of delicate senti- 
ment. It seemed pitiful to see so good a model left to 
5 country admirers and a country way of thought. Beauty 
should at least have touched society ; then, in a moment, 
it throws off a weight that lay upon it, it becomes con- 
scious of itself, it puts on an elegance, learns a gait and a 
carriage of the head, and, in a moment, pafet dea. Be- 

lo fore I left I assured Clarisse of my hearty admiration. 
She took it like milk, without embarrassment or wonder, 
merely looking at me steadily with her great eyes ; and I 
own the result upon myself was some confusion. If 
Clarisse could read English, I should not dare to add 

15 that her figure was unworthy of her face. Hers was a 
case for stays ; but that may perhaps grow better as she 
gets up in years. 

Pont de Montvert, or Greenhill Bridge, as we might 
say at home, is a place memorable in the story of the 

20 Camisards. It was here that the war broke out ; here 
that those southern Covenanters slew their Archbishop 
Sharpe. The persecution on the one hand, the febrile 
enthusiasm on the other, are almost equally difficult to 
understand in these quiet modern days, and with our 

25 easy modern beliefs and disbeliefs. The Protestants 
were one and all beside their right minds with zeal and 
sorrow. They were all prophets and prophetesses. 
Children at the breast would exhort their parents to good 
works. **A child of fifteen months at Quissac spoke 



Pont de Montvert 87 

from its mother's arms, agitated and sobbing, distinctly 
and with a loud voice." Marshal Villars has seen a 
town where all the women " seemed possessed by the 
devil," and had trembling fits, and uttered prophecies 
publicly upon the streets. A prophetess of Vivarais was 5 
hanged at Montpellier because blood flowed from her 
eyes and nose, and she declared that she was weeping 
tears of blood for the misfortunes of the Protestants. 
And it was not only women and children. Stalwart dan- 
gerous fellows, used to swing the sickle or to wield the 10 
forest ax, were likewise shaken with strange paroxysms, 
and spoke oracles with sobs and streaming tears. A 
persecution unsurpassed in violence had lasted near a 
score of years, and this was the result upon the perse- 
cuted ; hanging, burning, breaking on the wheel, had 15 
been in vain ; the dragoons had left their hoof-marks 
over all the country-side ; there were men rowing in the 
galleys, and women pining in the prisons of the Church ; 
and not a thought was changed in the heart of any up- 
right Protestant. 20 

Now the head and forefront of the persecution — after 
Lamoignon de Baville — Frangois de Langlade du Chayla 
(pronounced Cheila), Archpriest of the Cevennes and In- 
spector of Missions in the same country, had a house in 
which he sometimes dwelt in the town of Pont de Mont- 25 
vert. He was a conscientious person, who seems to have 
been intended by nature for a pirate, and now fifty-five, 
an age by which a man has learned all the moderation of 
which he is capable. A missionary in his youth in China, 



88 Travels with a Donkey- 

he there suffered martyrdom, was left for dead, and only 
succoured and brought back to life by the charity of a 
pariali.^ We must suppose the pariah devoid of second 
sight, and not purposely malicious in this act. Such an 
5 experience, it might be thought, would have cured a man 
of the desire to persecute ; but the human spirit is a thing 
strangely put together ; and, having been a Christian 
martyr, Du Chayla became a Christian persecutor. The 
Work of the Propagation of the Faith went roundly for- 

loward in his hands. His house in Pont de Montvert 
served him as a prison. There he plucked out the hairs 
of the beard, and closed the hands of his prisoners upon 
live coals, to convince them that they were deceived in 
their opinions. And yet had not he himself tried and 

15 proved the inefficacy of these carnal arguments among the 
Buddhists in China? 

Not only was Hfe made intolerable in Languedoc, but 
flight was rigidly forbidden. One Massip, a muleteer, 
and well acquainted with the mountain paths, had already 

20 guided several troops of fugitives in safety to Geneva ; 
and on him, with another convoy, consisting mostly of 
women dressed as men, Du Chayla, in an evil hour for 
himself, laid his hands. The Sunday following, there 
was a conventicle of Protestants in the woods of Altefage 

25 upon Mount Bouges ; where there stood up one Siguier 
— Spirit Siguier, as his companions called him — a wool- 
carder, tall, black-faced, and toothless, but a man full of 

1 A man of the lowest class in India and much despised by those 
above him, hence an outcast. 



Pont de Montvert 89 

prophecy. He declared, in the name of God, that the 
time for submission had gone by, and they must betake 
themselves to arms for the deliverance of their brethren 
and the destruction of the priests. 

The next night, 24th July, 1702, a sound disturbed the 5 
Inspector of Missions as he sat in his prison-house at 
Pont de Montvert ; the voices of many men upraised in 
psalmody drew nearer and nearer through the town. It 
was ten at night ; he had his court about him, priests, 
soldiers, and servants, to the number of twelve or fifteen, 10 
and now dreading the insolence of a conventicle below 
his very windows, he ordered forth his soldiers to report. 
But the psalm-singers were already at his door, fifty strong, 
led by the inspired Siguier, and breathing death. To 
their summons, the archpriest made answer like a stout 15 
old persecutor, and bade his garrison fire upon the mob. 
One Camisard (for, according to some, it was in this night's 
work that they came by the name) fell at this discharge ; 
his comrades burst in the door with hatchets and a beam 
of wood, overran the lower story of the house, set free 20 
the prisoners, and finding one of them in the vine, a sort 
of Scavenger's Daughter of the place and period, re- 
doubled in fury against Du Chayla, and sought by re- 
peated assaults to carry the upper floors. But he, on his 
side, had given absolution to his men, and they bravely 25 
held the staircase. 

" Children of God," cried the prophet, " hold your 
hands. Let us burn the house, with the priest and the 
satelUtes of Baal." 



90 Travels with a Donkey 

The fire caught readily. Out of an upper window Du 
Chayla and his men lowered themselves into the garden 
by means of knotted sheets ; some escaped across the 
river under the bullets of the insurgents ; but the arch- 
5 priest himself fell, broke his thigh, and could only crawl 
into the hedge. What were his reflections as this second 
martyrdom drew near ? A poor, brave, besotted, hateful 
man, who had done his duty resolutely according to his 
light both in the C^vennes and China. He found at least 

lo one telling word to say in his defence ; for when the roof 
fell in and the upbursting flames discovered his retreat, 
and they came and dragged him to the public place of the 
town, raging and calling him damned — " If I be damned," 
said he, " why should you also damn yourselves? " 

15 Here was a good reason for the last ; but in the course 
of his inspectorship he had given many stronger which all 
told in a contrary direction ; and these he was now to 
hear. One by one, Siguier first, the Camisards drew near 
and stabbed him. "This," they said, "is for my father 

20 broken on the wheel. This for my brother in the galleys. 
That for my mother or my sister imprisoned in your 
cursed convents." Each gave his blow and his reason ; 
and then all kneeled and sang psalms around the body till 
the dawn. With the dawn, still singing, they defiled 

25 away towards Frugeres, further up the Tarn, to pursue 
the work of vengeance, leaving Du Chayla's prison-house 
in ruins, and his body pierced with two-and-fifty wounds 
upon the public place. 

'Tis a wild night's work, with its accompaniment of 



Pont de Montvert 91 

psalms ; and it seems as if a psalm must always have a 
sound of threatening in that town upon the Tarn. But 
the story does not end, even so far as concerns Pont de 
Montvert, with the departure of the Camisards. The 
career of Siguier was brief and bloody. Two more priests 5 
and a whole family at Ladeveze, from the father to the 
servants, fell by his hand or by his orders ; and yet he 
was but a day or two at large, and restrained all the time 
by the presence of the soldiery. Taken at length by a 
famous soldier of fortune, Captain Poul, he appeared 10 
unmoved before his judges. 

"Your name?" they asked. 

" Pierre Seguier." 

" Why are you called Spirit ? " 

" Because the Spirit of the Lord is with me." 15 

"Your domicile? " 

" Lately in the desert, and soon in heaven." 

" Have you no remorse for your crimes? " 

" I have committed none. My soul is like a garden 
ficll of shelter and of fountains y 20 

At Pont de Montvert, on the 12th of August, he had 
his right hand stricken from his body, was burned alive. 
And his soul was Hke a garden? So perhaps was the 
soul of Du Chayla, the Christian martyr. And perhaps 
if you could read in my soul, or I could read in yours, 25 
our own composure might seem httle less surprising. 

Du Chayla's house still stands, with a new roof, beside 
one of the bridges of the town ; and if you are curious 
you may see the terrace-garden into which he dropped. 



92 Travels with a Donkey 

IN THE VALLEY OF THE TARN 

A NEW road leads from Pont de Montvert to Florae by 
the valley of the Tarn ; a smooth sandy ledge, it runs 
about half-way between the summit of the cliffs and the 
river in the bottom of the valley ; and I went in and out, 
5 as I followed it, from bays of shadow into promontories 
of afternoon sun. This was a pass like that of Killie- 
crankie ; a deep turning gully in the hills, with the Tarn 
making a wonderful hoarse uproar far below, and craggy 
summits standing in the sunshine high above. A thin 

lo fringe of ash-trees ran about the hill-tops, Hke ivy on a 
ruin ; but on the lower slopes, and far up every glen, the 
Spanish chestnut-trees stood each four-square to heaven 
under its tented foliage. Some were planted, each on its 
own terrace no larger than a bed ; some, trusting in their 

15 roots, found strength to grow and prosper and be straight 
and large upon the rapid slopes of the valley ; others, 
where there was a margin to the river, stood marshalled 
in a line and mighty like cedars of Lebanon. Yet even 
where they grew most thickly they were not to be thought 

20 of as a wood, but as a herd of stalwart individuals ; and 
the dome of each tree stood forth separate and large, 
and as it were a little hill, from among the domes of its 
companions. They gave forth a faint sweet perfume 
which pervaded the air of the afternoon ; autumn had 

25 put tints of gold and tarnish in the green ; and the sun 
so shone through and kindled the broad foliage, that 
each chestnut was relieved against another, not in shadow. 



In the Valley of the Tarn 93 

but in light. A humble sketcher here laid down his 
pencil in despair. 

I wish I could convey a notion of the growth of these 
noble trees ; of how they strike out boughs like the oak, 
and trail sprays of drooping foliage like the willow ; of 5 
how they stand on upright fluted columns like the pillars 
of a church ; or like the olive, from the most shattered 
bole can put out smooth and youthful shoots, and begin 
a new life upon the ruins of the old. Thus they partake 
of the nature of many different trees; and even their 10 
prickly top-knots, seen near at hand against the sky, have 
a certain palm-like air that impresses the imagination. 
But their individuality, although compounded of so many 
elements, is but the richer and the more original. And 
to look down upon a level filled with these knolls of 15 
foliage, or to see a clan of old unconquerable chestnuts 
cluster *'hke herded elephants" upon the spur of a 
mountain, is to rise to higher thoughts of the powers that 
are in Nature. 

Between Modestine's laggard humour and the beauty 20 
of the scene, we made little progress all that afternoon ; 
and at last finding the sun, although still far from setdng, 
was already beginning to desert the narrow valley of the 
Tarn, I began to cast about for a place to camp in. 
This was not easy to find ; the terraces were too narrow, 25 
and the ground, where it was unterraced, was usually too 
steep for a man to he upon. I should have slipped all 
night, and awakened towards morning with my feet or 
my head in the river. 



94 Travels with a Donkey 

After perhaps a mile, I saw, some sixty feet above the 
road, a Httle plateau large enough to hold my sack, and 
securely parapeted by the trunk of an aged and enormous 
chestnut. Thither, with infinite trouble, I goaded and 
5 kicked the reluctant Modestine, and there I hastened to 
unload her. There was only room for myself upon the 
plateau, and I had to go nearly as high again before I 
found so much as standing room for the ass. It was on 
a heap of rolling stones, on an artificial terrace, certainly 

lo not five feet square in all. Here I tied her to a chestnut, 
and having given her corn and bread and made a pile of 
chestnut-leaves, of which I found her greedy, I descended 
once more to my own encampment. 

The position was unpleasantly exposed. One or two 

15 carts went by upon the road ; and as long as daylight 
lasted I concealed myself, for all the world like a hunted 
Camisard, behind my fortification of vast chestnut trunk ; 
for I was passionately afraid of discovery and the visit of 
jocular persons in the night. Moreover, I saw that I 

20 must be early awake ; for these chestnut gardens had 
been the scene of industry no farther gone than on the 
day before. The slope was strewn with lopped branches, 
and here and there a great package of leaves was propped 
against a trunk ; for even the leaves are serviceable, and 

25 the peasants use them in winter by way of fodder for 
their animals. I picked a meal in fear and trembling, 
half lying down to hide myself from the road ; and I 
daresay I was as much concerned as if I had been a scout 
from Joani 's band above upon the Lozere, or from 



In the Valley of the Tarn 95 

Salomon's across the Tarn, in the old times of psalm- 
singing and blood. Or, indeed, perhaps more ; for the 
Camisards had a remarkable confidence in God ; and a 
tale comes back into my memory of how the Count of 
Gevaudan, riding with a party of dragoons and a notary 5 
at his saddlebow to enforce the oath of fidelity in all the 
country hamlets, entered a valley in the woods, and 
found Cavalier and his men at dinner, gaily seated on 
the grass, and their hats crowned with box- tree garlands, 
while fifteen women washed their linen in the stream. 10 
Such was a field festival in 1 703 ; at that date Antony 
Watteau would be painting similar subjects. 

This was a very different camp from that of the night 
before in the cool and silent pine-woods. It was warm 
and even stifling in the valley. The shrill song of frogs, 15 
like the tremolo note of a whistle with a pea in it, rang 
up from the river side before the sun was down. In the 
growing dusk, faint rusdings began to run to and fro 
among the fallen leaves ; from time to time a faint chirp- 
ing or cheeping noise would fall upon my ear ; and from 20 
time to time I thought I could see the movement of 
something swift and indistinct between the chestnuts. A 
profusion of large ants swarmed upon the ground ; bats 
whisked by, and mosquitoes droned overhead. The long 
boughs with their bunches of leaves hung against the sky 25 
like garlands ; and those immediately above and around 
me had somewhat the air of a treUis which should have 
been wrecked and half overthrown in a gale of wind. 

Sleep for a long time fled my eyelids ; and just as I 



g6 Travels with a Donkey 

was beginning to feel quiet stealing over my limbs, and 
settling densely on my mind, a noise at my head startled 
me broad awake again, and, I will frankly confess it, brought 
my heart into my mouth. It was such a noise as a per- 
5 son would make scratching loudly with a finger-nail, it 
came from under the knapsack which served me for a 
pillow, and it was thrice repeated before I had time to sit 
up and turn about. Nothing was to be seen, nothing more 
was to be heard, but a few of these mysterious rustlings 

lo far and near, and the ceaseless accompaniment of the 
river and the frogs. I learned next day that the chest- 
nut gardens are infested by rats ; rustUng, chirping, and 
scraping were probably all due to these ; but the puzzle, 
for the moment, was insoluble, and I had to compose 

15 myself for sleep, as best I could, in wondering uncertainty 
about my neighbours. 

I was wakened in the grey of the morning (Monday, 
30th September) by the sound of footsteps not far off 
upon the stones, and opening my eyes, I beheld a peasant 

20 going by among the chestnuts by a foot-path that I had 
not hitherto observed. He turned his head neither to 
the right nor to the left, and disappeared in a few strides 
among the foliage. Here was an escape ! But it was 
plainly more than time to be moving. The peasantry 

25 were abroad; scarce less terrible to me in my non- 
descript position than the soldiers of Captain Poul to an 
undaunted Camisard. I fed Modestine with what haste 
I could ; but as I was returning to my sack, I saw a man 
and a boy come down the hill-side in a direction crossing 



In the Valley of the Tarn 97 

mine. They unintelligibly hailed me, and I replied with 
inarticulate but cheerful sounds, and hurried forward to 
get into my gaiters. 

The pair, who seemed to be father and son, came 
slowly up to the plateau, and stood close beside me for 5 
some time in silence. The bed was open, and I saw 
with regret my revolver lying patently disclosed on the 
blue wool. At last, after they had looked me all over, 
and the silence had grown laughably embarrassing, the 
man demanded in what seemed unfriendly tones : — 10 

"You have slept here? " 

"Yes," said I. "As you see." 

"Why?" he asked. 

" My faith," I answered lightly, " I was tired." 

He next inquired where I was going and what I had 15 
had for dinner ; and then, without the least transition, 
" C'est bien,'' he added, "come along." And he and 
his son, without another word, turned off to the next 
chestnut-tree but one, which they set to pruning. The 
thing had passed off more simply than I hoped. He was 20 
a grave, respectable man ; and his unfriendly voice did 
not imply that he thought he was speaking to a criminal, 
but merely to an inferior. 

I was soon on the road, nibbhng a cake of chocolate 
and seriously occupied with a case of conscience. Was 1 25 
to pay for my night's lodging? I had slept ill, the bed 
was full of fleas in the shape of ants, there was no water 
in the room, the very dawn had neglected to call me in 
the morning. I might have missed a train, had there 

TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY — 7 



98 Travels with a Donkey 

been any in the neighbourhood to catch. Clearly, I was 
dissatisfied with my entertainment ; and I decided I 
should not pay unless I met a beggar. 

The valley looked even lovelier by morning ; and soon 
5 the road descended to the level of the river. Here, in a 
place where many straight and prosperous chestnuts 
stood together, making an aisle upon a swarded terrace, 
I made my morning toilet in the water of the Tarn. It 
was marvellously clear, thrillingly cool ; the soapsuds dis- 

10 appeared as if by magic in the swift current, and the 
white boulders gave one a model for cleanliness. To wash 
in one of God's rivers in the open air seems to me a sort 
of cheerful solemnity or semi-pagan act of worship. To 
dabble among dishes in a bedroom may perhaps make 

15 clean the body ; but the imagination takes no share in 
such a cleansing. I went on with a light and peaceful 
heart, and sang psalms to the spiritual ear as I advanced. 
Suddenly up came an old woman, who point-blank de- 
manded alms. 

20 '' Good," thought I ; " here comes the waiter with the bill." 
And I paid for my night's lodging on the spot. Take 
it how you please, but this was the first and the last 
beggar that I met with during all my tour. 

A step or two farther I was overtaken by an old man in 

25 a brown nightcap, clear-eyed, weather-beaten, with a faint 
excited smile. A little girl followed him, driving two 
sheep and a goat ; but she kept in our wake, while the 
old man walked beside me and talked about the morn- 
ing and the valley. It was not much past six ; and for 



In the Valley of the Tarn 99 

healthy people who have slept enough, that is an hour of 
expansion and of open and trustful talk. 

" Connaissez-vous le Seigneur V he said. at length. 

I asked him what Seigneur he meant ; but he only re- 
peated the question with more emphasis and a look in his 5 
eyes denoting hope and interest. 

" Ah ! " said I, pointing upwards, " I understand you 
now. Yes, I know Him ; He is the best of acquaint- 
ances." 

The old man said he was delighted. " Hold," he 10 
added, striking his bosom; "it makes me happy here." 
There were a few who knew the Lord in these valleys, he 
went on to tell me ; not many, but a few. " Many are 
called," he quoted, " and few chosen." 

" My father," said I, " it is not easy to say who know the 15 
Lord ; and it is none of our business. Protestants and 
Catholics, and even those who worship stones, may know 
Him and be known by Him ; for He has made all." 

I did not know I was so good a preacher. 

The old man assured me he thought as I did, and 20 
repeated his expressions of pleasure at meeting me. 
"We are so few," he said. "They call us Moravians 
here ; but down in the department of Gard, where there 
are also a good number, they are called Derbists, after 
an English pastor." 25 

I began to understand that I was figuring, in question- 
able taste, as a member of some sect to me unknown ; 
but I was more pleased with the pleasure of my com- 
panion than embarrassed by my own equivocal position. 



lOO Travels with a Donkey 

Indeed I can see no dishonesty in not avowing a differ- 
ence ; and especially in these high matters, where we 
have all a sufficient assurance that, whoever may be in 
the wrong, we ourselves are not completely in the right. 
5 The truth is much talked about ; but this old man in a 
brown nightcap showed himself so simple, sweet, and 
friendly that I am not unwilling to profess myself his 
convert. He was, as a matter of fact, a Plymouth 
Brother. Of what that involves in the way of doctrine 

lo I have no idea nor the time to inform myself; but I 
know right well that we are all embarked upon a trouble- 
some world, the children of one Father, striving in many 
essential points to do and to become the same. And al- 
though it was somewhat in a mistake that he shook hands 

15 with me so often and showed himself so ready to receive 
my words, that was a mistake of the truth-finding sort. 
For charity begins blindfold ; and only through a series 
of similar misapprehensions rises at length into a settled 
principle of love and patience, and a firm belief in all 

20 our fellow-men. If I deceived this good old man, in the 
like manner I would willingly go on to deceive others. 
And if ever at length, out of our separate and sad ways, we 
should all come together into one common house, I have a 
hope, to which I cling dearly, that my mountain Plymouth 

25 Brother will hasten to shake hands with me again. 

Thus, talking like Christian and Faithful by the way, 
he and I came down upon a hamlet by the Tarn. It 
was but a humble place, called La Vernede, with less than 
a dozen houses, and a Protestant chapel on a knoll. 



In the Valley of the Tarn loi 

Here he dwelt ; and here, at the inn, I ordered my 
breakfast. The inn was kept by an agreeable young man, 
a stonebreaker on the road, and his sister, a pretty and 
engaging girl. The village schoolmaster dropped in to 
speak with the stranger. And these were all Protestants 5 
— a fact which pleased me more than I should have ex- 
pected ; and, what pleased me still more, they seemed 
all upright and simple people. The Plymouth Brother 
hung round me with a sort of yearning interest, and 
returned at least thrice to make sure I was enjoying my 10 
meal. His behaviour touched me deeply at the time, 
and even now moves me in recollection. He feared to 
intrude, but he would not willingly forego one moment of 
my society ; and he seemed never weary of shaking me 
by the hand. 15 

When all the rest had drifted off to their day's work, 
I sat for near half an hour with the young mistress of 
the house, who talked pleasantly over her seam of the 
chestnut harvest, and the beauties of the Tarn, and old 
family affections, broken up when young folk go from 20 
home, yet still subsisting. Hers, I am sure, was a sweet 
nature, with a country plainness and much dehcacy un- 
derneath ; and he who takes her to his heart will doubtless 
be a fortunate young man. 

The valley below La Vernfede pleased me more and 25 
more as I went forward. Now the hills approached 
from either hand, naked and crumbling, and walled in 
the river between cliffs ; and now the valley widened and 
became green. The road led me past the old castle of 



I02 • Travels with a Donkey 

Miral on a steep ; past a battle m anted monastery, long 
since broken up and turned into a church and parson- 
age ; and past a cluster of black roofs, the village of 
Cocures, sitting among vineyards and meadows and 

5 orchards thick with red apples, and where, along the 
highway, they were knocking down walnuts from the 
roadside trees, and gathering them in sacks and baskets. 
The hills, however much the vale might open, were still 
tall and bare, with cliffy battlements and here and there a 

lo pointed summit ; and the Tarn still rattled through thei 
stones with a mountain noise. I had been led, by bag- 
men of a picturesque turn of mind, to expect a horrific 
country after the heart of Byron ; but to my Scotch eyes 
it seemed smiling and plentiful, as the weather still gave 

15 an impression of high summer to my Scotch body; al- 
though the chestnuts were already picked out by the au- 
tumn, and the poplars, that here began to mingle with them, 
had turned into pale gold against the approach of winter. 
There was something in this landscape, smiling although 

20 wild, that explained to me the spirit of the Southern Cov- 
enanters, Those who took to the hills for conscience' 
sake in Scotland had all gloomy and bedevilled thoughts ; 
for once that they received God's comfort they would be 
twice engaged with Satan ; but the Camisards had only 

25 bright and supporting visions. They dealt much more 
in blood, both given and taken ; yet I find no obsession 
of the Evil One in their records. With a light conscience, 
they pursued their life in these rough times and circum- 
stances. The soul of Seguier, let us not forget, was like 



Florae 103 

a garden. They knew they were on God's side, with a 
knowledge that has no parallel among the Scots ; for the 
Scots, although they might be certain of the cause, could 
never rest confident of the person. 

"We flew," says one old Camisard, "when we heard 5 
the sound of psalm-singing, we flew as if with wings. We 
felt within us an animating ardour, a transporting desire. 
The feeling cannot be expressed in words. It is a thing 
that must have been experienced to be understood. How- 
ever weary we might be, we thought no more of our weari- 10 
ness and grew light, so soon as the psalms fell upon our 
ears." 

The valley of the Tarn and the people whom I met at 
La Vernede not only explain to me this passage, but the 
twenty years of suffering which those who were so stiff 15 
and so bloody when once they betook themselves to war, 
endured with the meekness of children and the constancy 
of saints and peasants. 

FLORAC 

On a branch of the Tarn stands Florae, the seat of a 
subprefecture, with an old castle, an alley of planes, many 20 
quaint street-corners, and a live fountain welHng from the 
hill. It is notable, besides, for handsome women, and as 
one of the two capitals, Alais being the other, of the 
country of the Camisards. 

The landlord of the inn took me, after I had eaten, to 25 
an adjoining cafe, where I, or rather my journey, became 
the topic of the afternoon. Everyone had some sugges- 



I04 Travels with a Donkey 

tion for my guidance ; and the subprefectorial map was 
fetched from the subprefecture ^ itself, and much thumbed 
among coffee-cups and glasses of liqueur. Most of these 
kind advisers were Protestant, though I observed that 
5 Protestant and Catholic intermingled in a very easy man- 
ner; and it surprised me to see what a Uvely memory 
still subsisted of the rehgious war. Among the hills of 
the southwest, by MauchHne, Cumnock, or Carsphairn, 
in isolated farms or in the manse, serious Presbyterian 

lo people still recall the days of the great persecution, and 
the graves of local martyrs are still piously regarded. 
But in towns and among the so-called better classes, I 
fear that these old doings have become an idle tale. If 
you met a mixed company in the King's Arms at Wigtown, 

15 it is not likely that the talk would run on Covenanters. 
Nay, at Muirkirk of Glenluce, I found the beadle's wife 
had not so much as heard of Prophet Peden. But these 
C^venols were proud of their ancestors in quite another 
sense ; the war was their chosen topic ; its exploits were 

20 their own patent of nobility ; and where a man or a race 
has had but one adventure, and that heroic, we must ex- 
pect and pardon some prolixity of reference. They told 
me the country was still full of legends hitherto uncol- 
lected ; I heard from them about CavaUer's descendants 

25 — not direct descendants, be it understood, but only 

cousins or nephews — who were still prosperous people 

in the scene of the boy-general's exploits ; and one farmer 

had seen the bones of old combatants dug up into the air 

1 The office of the subprefect, the official of the place. 



Florae 105 

of an afternoon in the nineteenth century, in a field where 
the ancestors had fought, and the great-grandchildren 
were peaceably ditching. 

Later in the day one of the Protestant pastors was so 
good as to visit me : a young man, intelHgent and polite, 5 
with whom I passed an hour or two in talk. Florae, he 
told me, is part Protestant, part Catholic ; and the differ- 
ence in religion is usually doubled by a difference in 
poHtics. You may judge of my surprise, coming as I did 
from such a babbling purgatorial Poland of a place as 10 
Monastier, when I learned that the population lived to- 
gether on very quiet terms ; and there was even an ex- 
change of hospitalities between households thus doubly 
separated. Black Camisard and White Camisard, militia- 
man and Miquelet and dragoon, Protestant prophet and 15 
Catholic cadet of the White Cross, they had all been 
sabring and shooting, burning, pillaging, and murdering, 
their hearts hot with indignant passion ; and here, after 
a hundred and seventy years, Protestant is still Protestant, 
Catholic still Catholic, in mutual toleration and mild 20 
amity of life. But the race of man, like that indomitable 
nature whence it sprang, has medicating virtues of its 
own ; the years and seasons bring various harvests ; the 
sun returns after the rain ; and mankind outlives secular 
animosities, as a single man awakens from the passions 25 
of a day. We judge our ancestors from a more divine 
position; and the dust being a little laid with several 
centuries, we can see both sides adorned with human 
virtues and fighting with a show of right. 



io6 Travels with a Donkey 

I have never thought it easy to be just, and find it 
daily even harder than I thought. I own I met these 
Protestants with deHght and a sense of coming home. 
I was accustomed to speak their language, in another and 
5 deeper sense of the word than that which distinguishes 
between French and EngUsh; for the true babel is a 
divergence upon morals. And hence I could hold more 
free communication with the Protestants, and judge them 
more justly, than the Catholics. Father Apollinaris may 

lo pair off with my mountain Plymouth Brother as two guile- 
less and devout old men ; yet I ask myself if I had as 
ready a feeling for the virtues of the Trappist ; or had I 
been a Catholic, if I should have felt so warmly to the 
dissenter of La Vernede. With the first I was on terms 

15 of mere forbearance ; but with the other, although only 
on a misunderstanding and by keeping on selected points, 
it was still possible to hold converse and exchange some 
honest thoughts. In this world of imperfection we gladly 
welcome even partial intimacies. And if we find but one 

20 to whom we can speak out of our heart freely, with whom 
we can walk in love and simplicity without dissimulation, 
we have no ground of quarrel with the world or God. 

IN THE VALLEY OF THE MIMENTE 

On Tuesday, ist October, we left Florae late in the 
afternoon, a tired donkey and tired donkey-driver. A 
25 little way up the Tarnon, a covered bridge of wood in- 
troduced us into the valley of the Mimente. Steep rocky 
red mountains overhung the stream; great oaks and 



In the Valley of the Mimente 107 

chestnuts grew upon the slopes or in stony terraces ; 
here and there was a red field of millet or a few apple- 
trees studded with red apples; and the road passed hard 
by two black hamlets, one with an old castle atop to 
please the heart of the tourist. 5 

It was difficult here again to find a spot fit for my en- 
campment. Even under the oaks and chestnuts the 
ground had not only a very rapid slope, but was heaped 
with loose stones ; and where there was no timber the hills 
descended to the stream in a red precipice tufted with 10 
heather. The sun had left the highest peak in front of 
me, and the valley was full of the lowing sound of herds- 
men's horns as they recalled the flocks into the stable, 
when I spied a bight of meadow some way below the 
roadway in an angle of the river. Thither I descended, 15 
and, tying Modestine provisionally to a tree, proceeded 
to investigate the neighbourhood. A grey pearly even- 
ing shadow filled the glen; objects at a little distance 
grew indistinct and melted bafilingly into each other ; and 
the darkness was rising steadily Uke an exhalation. 1 20 
approached a great oak which grew in the meadow, hard 
by the river's brink ; when to my disgust the voices of 
children fell upon my ear, and I beheld a house round 
the angle on the other bank. I had half a mind to pack 
and be gone again, but the growing darkness moved me 25 
to remain. I had only to make jio noise until the night 
was fairly come, and trust to the dawn to call me early 
in the morning. But it was hard to be annoyed by 
neighbours in such a great hotel. 



io8 Travels with a Donkey 

A hollow underneath the oak was my bed. Before I 
had fed Modestine and arranged my sack, three stars were 
already brightly shining, and the others were beginning 
dimly to appear. I slipped down to the river, which 
5 looked very black among its rocks, to fill my can ; and 
dined with a good appetite in the dark, for I scrupled to 
light a lantern while so near a house. The moon, which 
I had seen, a pallid crescent, all afternoon, faintly illumi- 
nated the summit of the hills, but not a ray fell into the 

lo bottom of the glen where I was lying. The oak rose be- 
fore me like a pillar of darkness ; and overhead the heart- 
some stars were set in the face of night. No one knows 
the stars who has not slept, as the French happily put it, 
a la belle eioile. He may know all their names and dis- 

15 tances and magnitudes, and yet be ignorant of what alone 
concerns mankind, their serene and gladsome influence on 
the mind. The greater part of poetry is about the stars ; 
and very justly, for they are themselves the most clas^sical 
of poets. These same far-away worlds, sprinkled like 

20 tapers or shaken together like a diamond dust upon the 
sky, had looked not otherwise to Roland or CavaHer, when, 
in the words of the latter, they had "no other tent but the 
sky, and no other bed than my mother earth." 

All night a strong wind blew up the valley, and the 

25 acorns fell pattering over me from the oak. Yet, on this 
first night of October, the air was as mild as May, and I 
slept with the fur thrown back. 

I was much disturbed by the barking of a dog, an animal 
that I fear more than any wolf. A dog is vastly braver, 



In the Valley of the Mimente 109 

and is besides supported by the sense of duty. If you 
kill a wolf, you meet with encouragement and praise ; but 
if you kill a dog, the sacred rights of property and the 
domestic affections come clamouring round you for redress. 
At the end of a fagging day, the sharp, cruel note of a dog's 5 
bark is in itself a keen annoyance ; and to a tramp like 
myself, he represents the sedentary and respectable world 
in its most hostile form. There is something of the clergy- 
man or the lawyer about this engaging animal ; and if he 
were not amenable to stones, the boldest man would shrink 10 
from travelling afoot. I respect dogs much in the do- 
mestic circle ; but on the highway or sleeping afield, I 
both detest and fear them. 

I was wakened next morning (Wednesday, October 2d) 
by the same dog — for I knew his bark — making a charge 15 
down the bank, and then, seeing me sit up, retreating 
again with great alacrity. The stars were not yet quite 
extinguished. The heaven was of that enchanting mild 
grey-blue of the early morn. A still clear hght began to 
fall, and the trees on the hill-side were outlined sharply 20 
against the sky. The wind had veered more to the north, 
and no longer reached me in the glen ; but as I was going 
on with my preparations, it drove a white cloud very 
swiftly over the hill-top ; and looking up, I was surprised 
to see the cloud dyed with gold. In these high regions 25 
of the air, the sun was already shining as at noon. If 
only the clouds travelled high enough, we should see the 
same thing all night long. For it is always daylight in the 
fields of space. 



no Travels with a Donkey 

As I began to go up the valley, a draught of wind came 
down it out of the seat of the sunrise, although the clouds 
continued to run overhead in an almost contrary direction. 
A few steps farther, and I saw a whole hill-side gilded with 
5 the sun ; and still a little beyond, between two peaks, a 
centre of dazzling brilliancy appeared floating in the sky, 
and I was once more face to face with the big bonfire 
that occupies the kernel of our system. 

I met but one human being that forenoon, a dark 

lo military-looking wayfarer, who carried a game-bag on a 
baldric ; but he made a remark that seems worthy of 
record. For when I asked him if he were Protestant or 
Catholic — 

"O," said he, "I make no shame of my religion. I 

15 am a Catholic." 

He made no shame of it ! The phrase is a piece of 
natural statistics ; for it is the language of one in a mi- 
nority. I thought with a smile of Baville and his dragoons, 
and how you may ride rough-shod over a religion for a 

20 century, and leave it only the more lively for the friction. 
Ireland is still Catholic ; the C^vennes still Protestant. 
It is not a basketful of law-papers, nor the hoofs and 
pistol-butts of a regiment of horse, that can change one 
tittle of a ploughman's thoughts. Outdoor rustic people 

25 have not many ideas, but such as they have are hardy 
plants and thrive flourishingly in persecution. One who 
has grown a long while in the sweat of laborious noons, 
and under the stars at night, a frequenter of hills and 
forests, an old honest countryman, has, in the end, a 



The Heart of the Country 1 1 1 

sense of communion with the powers of the universe, and 
amicable relations towards his God. Like my mountain 
Plymouth Brother, he knows the Lord. His religion does 
not repose upon a choice of logic ; it is the poetry of the 
man's experience, the philosophy of the history of his life. 5 
God, like a great power, hke a great shining sun, has ap- 
peared to this simple fellow in the course of years, and 
become the ground and essence of his least reflections; 
and you may change creeds and dogmas by authority, or 
proclaim a new religion with the sound of trumpets, if 10 
you will ; but here is a man who has his own thoughts, 
and will stubbornly adhere to them in good and evil. He 
is a Catholic, a Protestant, or a Plymouth Brother, in the 
same indefeasible sense that a man is not a woman, or a 
woman not a man. For he could not vary from his faith, 15 
unless he could eradicate all memory of the past, and, in a 
strict and not a conventional meaning, change his mind. 

THE HEART OF THE COUNTRY 

I WAS now drawing near to Cassagnas, a cluster of black 
roofs upon the hill-side, in this wild valley, among chest- 
nut gardens, and looked upon in the clear air by many 20 
rocky peaks. The road along the Mimente is yet new, 
nor have the mountaineers recovered their surprise when 
the first cart arrived at Cassagnas. But although it lay 
thus apart from the current of men's business, this hamlet 
had already made a figure in the history of France. 25 
Hard by, in caverns of the mountain, was one of the five 



1 1 2 Travels with a Donkey 

arsenals of the Camisards ; where they laid up clothes 
and corn and arms against necessity, forged bayonets and 
sabres, and made themselves gunpowder with willow char- 
coal and saltpetre boiled in kettles. To the same caves, 
5 amid this multifarious industry, the sick and wounded 
were brought up to heal ; and there they were visited by 
the two surgeons, Chabrier and Tavan, and secretly 
nursed by women of the neighbourhood. 

Of the five legions into which the Camisards were divided, 

lo it was the oldest and the most obscure that had its maga- 
zines by Cassagnas. This was the band of Spirit Siguier ; 
men who had joined their voices with his in the 68th 
Psalm as they marched down by night on the archpriest 
of the C^vennes. Seguier, promoted to heaven, was 

15 succeeded by Salomon Couderc, whom Cavalier treats in 
his memoirs as chaplain-general to the whole army of the 
Camisards. He was a prophet ; a great reader of the 
heart, who admitted people to the sacrament or refused 
them by " intentively viewing every man " between the 

20 eyes ; and had the most of the Scriptures off by rote. 
And this was surely happy ; since in a surprise in August 
1703, he lost his mule, his portfolios, and his Bible. It 
is only strange that they were not surprised more often 
and more effectually ; for this legion of Cassagnas was 

25 truly patriarchal in its theory of war, and camped without 
sentries, leaving that duty to the angels of the God for 
whom they fought. This is a token, not only of their 
faith, but of the trackless country where they harboured. 
M. de Caladon taking a stroll one fine day, walked with- 



The Heart of the Country 113 

out warning into their midst, as he might have walked 
into "a flock of sheep in a plain," and found some asleep 
and some awake and psalm-singing. A traitor had need 
of no recommendation to insinuate himself among their 
ranks, beyond " his faculty of singing psalms " ; and even s 
the prophet Salomon " took him into a particular friend- 
ship." Thus, among their intricate hills, the rustic troop 
subsisted ; and history can attribute few exploits to them 
but sacraments and ecstasies. 

People of this tough and simple stock will not, as 1 10 
have just been saying, prove variable in religion ; nor will 
they get nearer to apostasy than a mere external conform- 
ity like that of Naaman in the house of Rimmon. When 
Louis XVI, in the words of the edict, " convinced by the 
uselessness of a century of persecutions, and rather from 15 
necessity than sympathy," granted at last a royal grace of 
toleration, Cassagnas was still Protestant ; and to a man, 
it is so to this day. There is, indeed, one family that is 
not Protestant, but neither is it Catholic. It is that of 
a Catholic cure in revolt, who has taken to his bosom a 20 
schoolmistress. And his conduct, it's worth noting, is 
disapproved by the Protestant villagers. 

" It is a bad idea for a man," said one, " to go back 
from his engagements." 

The villagers whom I saw seemed intelligent after a 25 
countrified fashion, and were all plain and dignified in 
manner. As a Protestant myself, I was well looked upon, 
and my acquaintance with history gained me farther 
respect. For we had something not unlike a religious 

INLAND VOYAGE — 8 



114 Travels with a Donkey 

controversy at table, a gendarme and a merchant with 
whom I dined being both strangers to the place and Catho- 
lics. The young men of the house stood round and 
supported me ; and the whole discussion was tolerantly 
5 conducted, and surprised a man brought up among the 
infinitesimal and contentious differences of Scotland. 
The merchant, indeed, grew a little warm, and was far less 
pleased than some others with my historical acquirements. 
But the gendarme was mighty easy over it all. 

lo " It's a bad idea for a man to change," said he ; and 
the remark was generally applauded. 

That was not the opinion of the priest and soldier at 
our Lady of the Snows. But this is a different race ; and 
perhaps the same great-heartedness that upheld them to 

15 resist, now enables them to differ in a kind spirit. For 
courage respects courage ; but where a faith has been 
trodden out, we may look for a mean and narrow popula- 
tion. The true work of Bruce and Wallace was the union 
of the nations ; not that they should stand apart awhile 

20 longer, skirmishing upon their borders ; but that, when 
the time came, they might unite with self-respect. 

The merchant was much interested in my journey, and 
thought it dangerous to sleep afield. 

" There are the wolves," said he ; " and then it is 

25 known you are an Englishman. The English have always 
long purses, and it might very well enter into some one's 
head to deal you an ill blow some night." 

I told him I was not much afraid of such accidents ; 
and at any rate judged it unwise to dwell upon alarms or 



The Heart of the Country 115 

consider small perils in the arrangement of life. Life 
itself, I submitted, was a far too risky business as a whole 
to make each additional particular of danger worth regard. 
'* Something," said I, " might burst in your inside any day 
of the week, and there would be an end of you, if you 5 . 
were locked into your room with three turns of the key." 

" Cepefidanf,'" said he, " coucher dehors! " 

" God," said I, " is everywhere." 

" Cependa7it, coucher dehors ! " he repeated, and his 
voice was eloquent of terror. 10 

He was the only person, in all my voyage, who saw 
anything hardy in so simple a proceeding; although 
many considered it superfluous. Only one, on the other 
hand, professed much delight in the idea ; and that was 
my Plymouth Brother, who cried out, when I told him 1 15 
sometimes preferred sleeping under the stars to a close 
and noisy ale-house, " Now I see that you know the Lord ! " 

The merchant asked me for one of my cards as I was 
leaving, for he said I should be something to talk of in 
the future, and desired me to make a note of his request 20 
and reason ; a desire with which I have thus comphed. 

A litde after two I struck across the Mimente, and took 
a rugged path southward up a hill-side covered with loose 
stones and tufts of heather. At the top, as is the habit of 
the country, the path disappeared ; and I left my she-ass 25 
munching heather, and went forward alone to seek a road. 

I was now on the separation of two vast watersheds ; 
behind me all the streams were bound for the Garonne 
and the Western Ocean ; before me was the basin of the 



ii6 Travels with a Donkey 

Rhone. Hence, as from the Lozere, you can see in clear 
weather the shining of the Gulf of Lyons ; and perhaps 
from here the soldiers of Salomon may have watched for 
the topsails of Sir Cloudesley Shovel, and the long-prom- 
5 ised aid from England. You may take this ridge as lying 
in the heart of the country of the Camisards ; four of the 
five legions camped all round it and almost within view — 
Salomon and Joani to the north, Castanet and Roland to 
the south ; and when JuUen had finished his famous work, 

lo the devastation of the High Cevennes, which lasted all 
through October and November, 1703, and during which 
four hundred and sixty villages and hamlets were, with 
fire and pickax, utterly subverted, a man standing on 
this eminence would have looked forth upon a silent, 

15 smokeless, and dispeopled land. Time and man's activity 
have now repaired these ruins ; Cassagnas is once more 
roofed and sending up domestic smoke ; and in the 
chestnut gardens, in low and leafy corners, many a pros- 
perous farmer returns, when the day's work is done, to 

20 his children and bright hearth. And still it was perhaps 
the wildest view of all my journey. Peak upon peak, 
chain upon chain of hills ran surging southward, channelled 
and sculptured by the winter streams, feathered from 
head to foot with chestnuts, and here and there breaking 

25 out into a coronal of cliffs. The sun, which was still far 
from setting, sent a drift of misty gold across the hill-tops, 
but the valleys were already plunged in a profound and 
quiet shadow. 

A very old shepherd, hobbling on a pair of sticks, and 



The Heart of the Country 117 

wearing a black cap of liberty, as if in honour of his near- 
ness to the grave, directed me to the road for St. Ger- 
main de Calberte. There was something solemn in the 
isolation of this infirm and ancient creature. Where he 
dwelt, how he got upon this high ridge, or how he pro- 5 
posed to get down again, were more than I could fancy. 
Not far off upon my right was the famous Plan de Font 
Morte, where Poul with his Armenian sabre slashed down 
the Camisards of Siguier. This, methought, might be 
some Rip van Winkle of the war, who had lost his com- 10 
rades, fleeing before Poul, and wandered ever since upon 
the mountains. It might be news to him that Cavaher had 
surrendered, or Roland had fallen fighting with his back 
against an olive. And while I was thus working on my 
fancy, I heard him hailing in broken tones, and saw him 15 
waving me to come back with one of his two sticks. I 
had already got some way past him ; but, leaving Mo- 
destine once more, retraced my steps. 

AlsLS, it was a very commonplace affair. The old 
gentleman had forgot to ask the pedlar what he sold, and 20 
wished to remedy this neglect. 

I told him sternly, " Nothing." 

" Nothing ? " cried he. 

I repeated " Nothing," and made off. 

It's odd to think of, but perhaps I thus became as in- 25 
explicable to the old man as he had been to me. 

The road lay under chestnuts, and though I saw a ham- 
let or two below me in the vale, and many lone houses of 
the chestnut farmers, it was a very solitary march all 



ii8 Travels with a Donkey 

afternoon ; and the evening began early underneath the 
trees. But I heard the voice of a woman singing some 
sad, old, endless ballad not far off. It seemed to be 
about love and a bela?noureux, her handsome sweetheart ; 
5 and I wished I could have taken up the strain and an- 
swered her, as I went on upon my invisible woodland 
way, weaving, like Pippa in the poem, my own thoughts 
with hers. What could I have told her? Little enough ; 
and yet all the heart requires. How the world gives and 

lo takes away, and brings sweethearts near, only to separate 
them again into distant and strange lands ; but to love is 
the great amulet which makes the world a garden ; and 
" hope, which comes to all," outwears the accidents of 
life, and reaches with tremulous hand beyond the grave 

15 and death. Easy to say : yea, but also, by God's mercy, 
both easy and grateful to beheve ! 

We struck at last into a wide white high-road, carpeted 
with noiseless dust. The night had come ; the moon 
had been shining for a long while upon the opposite 

20 mountain ; when on turning a corner my donkey and I 
issued ourselves into her hght. I had emptied out my 
brandy at Florae, for I could bear the stuff no longer, and 
replaced it with some generous and scented Volnay ; and 
now I drank to the moon's sacred majesty upon the road. 

25 It was but a couple of mouthfuls ; yet I became thence- 
forth unconscious of my Hmbs, and my blood flowed with 
luxury. Even Modestine was inspired by this, purified 
nocturnal sunshine, and bestirred her little hoofs as to a 
livelier measure. The road wound and descended swiftly 



The Heart of the Country 119 

among masses of chestnuts. Hot dust rose from our feet 
and flowed away. Our two shadows — mine deformed 
with the knapsack, hers comically bestridden by the pack 
— now lay before us clearly outlined on the road, and 
now, as we turned a corner, went off into the ghostly dis- 5 
tance, and sailed along the mountain like clouds. From 
time to time a warm wind rustled down the valley, and 
set all the chestnuts danghng their bunches of foliage and 
fruit ; the ear was filled with whispering music, and the 
shadows danced in tune. And next moment the breeze 10 
had gone by, and in all the valley nothing moved except 
our travelling feet. On the opposite slope, the monstrous 
ribs and gullies of the mountain were faintly designed in 
the moonshine ; and high overhead, in some lone house, 
there burned one lighted window, one square spark of red 15 
in the huge field of sad nocturnal colouring. 

At a certain point, as I went downward, turning many 
acute angles, the moon disappeared behind the hill ; and 
I pursued my way in great darkness, until another turning 
shot me without preparation into St. Germain de Calberte. 20 
The place was asleep and silent, and buried in opaque 
night. Only from a single open door, some lamplight 
escaped upon the road to show me that I was come 
among men's habitations. The two last gossips of the 
evening, still talking by a garden wall, directed me to 25 
the inn. The landlady was getting her chicks to bed ; the 
fire was already out, and had, not without grumbling, to 
be rekindled ; half an hour later, and I must have gone 
supperless to roost. 



IIO Travels with a Donkey 

THE LAST DAY 

When I awoke (Thursday, 2d October), and, hearing 
a great flourishing of cocks and chuckling of contented 
hens, betook me to the window of the clean and comfort- 
able room where I had slept the night, I looked forth on 
5 a sunshiny morning in a deep vale of chestnut gardens. 
It was still early, and the cock-crows, and the slanting 
lights, and the long shadows encouraged me to be out and 
look round me. 

St. Germain de Calberte is a great parish nine leagues 

10 round about. At the period of the wars, and immediately 
before the devastation, it was inhabited by two hundred 
and seventy-five families, of which only nine were Catho- 
lic ; and it took the cure seventeen September days to go 
from house to house on horseback for a census. But the 

15 place itself, although capital of a canton, is scarce larger 
than a hamlet. It lies terraced across a steep slope in the 
midst of mighty chestnuts. The Protestant chapel stands 
below upon a shoulder ; in the midst of the town is the 
quaint old Catholic church. 

20 It was here that poor Du Chayla, the Christian martyr, 
kept his library and held a court of missionaries ; here he 
had built his tomb, thinking to lie among a grateful popu- 
lation whom he had redeemed from error; and hither on 
the morrow of his death they brought the body, pierced 

25 with two-and-fifty wounds, to be interred. Clad in his 
priestly robes, he was laid out in state in the church. The 
cure, taking his text from Second Samuel, twentieth chapter 



The Last Day 121 

and twelfth verse, *'And Amasa wallowed in his blood in 
the highway," preached a rousing sermon, and exhorted 
his brethren to die each at his post, like their unhappy 
and illustrious superior. In the midst of this eloquence 
there came a breeze that Spirit Siguier was near at hand; 5 
and behold ! all the assembly took to their horses' heels, 
some east, some west, and the cure himself as far as 
Alais. 

Strange was the position of this Httle Catholic metrop- 
olis, a thimbleful of Rome, in such a wild and contrary 10 
neighbourhood. On the one hand, the legion of Salomon 
overlooked it from Cassagnas ; on the other, it was cut 
off from assistance by the legion of Roland at Mialet. 
The cure, Louvrelenil, although he took a panic at the 
archpriest's funeral, and so hurriedly decamped to Alais, 15 
stood well by his isolated pulpit, and thence uttered ful- 
minations against the crimes of the Protestants. Salomon 
besieged the village for an hour and a half, but was beat 
back. The militiamen, on guard before the cure's door, 
could be heard, in the black hours, singing Protestant 20 
psalms and holding friendly talk with the insurgents. And 
in the morning, although not a shot had been fired, there 
would not be a round of powder in their flasks. Where 
was it gone ? All handed over to the Camisards for a 
consideratiorl. Untrusty guardians for an isolated priest ! 25 

That these continual stirs were once busy in St. Ger- 
main de Calberte, the imagination with difficulty receives ; 
all is now so quiet, the pulse of human life now beats so 
low and still in this hamlet of the mountains. Boys fol- 



122 Travels with a Donkey 

lowed me a great way off, like a timid sort of lion-hunters ; 
and people turned round to have a second look, or came 
out of their houses, as I went by. My passage was the 
first event, you would have fancied, since the Camisards. 
5 There was nothing rude or forward in this observation ; it 
was but a pleased and wondering scrutiny, like that of 
oxen or the human infant ; yet it wearied my spirits, and 
soon drove me from the street. 

I took refuge on the terraces, which are here greenly 

lo carpeted with sward, and tried to imitate with a pencil 
the inimitable attitudes of the chestnuts as they bear up 
their canopy of leaves. Ever and again a little wind went 
by, and the nuts dropped all around me, with a light and 
dull sound, upon the sward.. The noise was as of a thin 

15 fall of great hailstones ; but there went with it a cheerful 
human sentiment of an approaching harvest and farmers 
rejoicing in their gains. Looking up, I could see the 
brown nut peering through the husk, which was already 
gaping; and between the stems the eye embraced an 

20 amphitheatre of hill, sunlit and green with leaves. 

I have not often enjoyed a place more deeply. I 
moved in an atmosphere of pleasure, and felt light and 
quiet and content. But perhaps it was not the place 
alone that so disposed my spirit. Perhaps some one was 

25 thinking of me in another country ; or perhaps some 
thought of my own had come and gone unnoticed, and 
yet done me good. For some thoughts, which sure 
would be the most beautiful, vanish before we can rightly 
scan their features ; as though a god, travelling by our 



The Last Day 123 

green highways, should but ope the door, give one smihng 
look into the house, and go again for ever. Was it 
Apollo, or Mercury, or Love with folded wings? Who 
shall say ? But we go the lighter about our business, and 
feel peace and pleasure in our hearts. 5 

I dined with a pair of Catholics. They agreed in the 
condemnation of a young man, a Catholic, who had 
married a Protestant girl and gone over to the religion of 
his wife. A Protestant born they could understand and 
respect ; indeed they seemed to be of the mind of an old 10 
Catholic woman, who told me that same day there was 
no difference between the two sects, save that, " wrong 
was more wrong for the Catholic," who had more light 
and guidance ; but this of a man's desertion filled them 
with contempt. 15 

" It is a bad idea for a man to change," said one. 

It may have been accidental, but you see how this 
phrase pursued me ; and for myself, I beUeve it is the 
current philosophy in these parts. I have some difficulty 
in imagining a better. It's not only a great flight of con- 20 
fidence for a man to change his creed and go out of his 
family for heaven's sake ; but the odds are — nay, and 
the hope is — that, with all this great transition in the eyes 
of man, he has not changed himself a hair's-breadth to the 
eyes of God. Honour to those who do so, for the wrench 25 
is sore. But it argues something narrow, whether of 
strength or weakness, whether of the prophet or the fool, 
in those who can take a sufficient interest in such infini- 
tesimal and human operations, or who can quit a friend- 



124 Travels with a Donkey 

ship for a doubtful process of the mind. And I think 
I should not leave my old creed for another, changing 
only words for other words ; but by some brave reading, 
embrace it in spirit and truth, and find wrong as wrong 
5 for me as for the best of other communions. 

^\\Q. phylloxera^ was in the neighbourhood ; and instead 
of wine we drank at dinner a more economical juice of 
the grape — la Parisienne, they call it. It is made by 
putting the fruit whole into a cask with water ; one by 

lo one the berries ferment and burst ; what is drunk during 
the day is suppHed at night in water ; so, with ever another 
pitcher from the well, and ever another grape exploding 
and giving out its strength, one cask of Farisienne may 
last a family till spring. It is, as the reader will anticipate, 

15 a feeble beverage, but very pleasant to the taste. 

What with dinner and coffee, it was long past three be- 
fore I left St. Germain de Calberte. I went down beside 
the Gardon of Mialet, a great glaring watercourse devoid 
of water, and through St. Etienne de Valine Fran^aise, 

20 or Val Francesque, as they used" to call it ; and towards 
evening began to ascend the hill of St. Pierre. It was a 
long and steep ascent. Behind me an empty carriage 
returning to St. Jean du Gard kept hard upon my tracks, 
and near the summit overtook me. The driver, like the 

25 rest of the world, was sure I was a pedlar ; but, unhke 

others, he was sure of what I had to sell. He had noticed 

the blue wool which hung out of my pack at either end ; 

and from this he had decided, beyond my power to alter 

1 An insect that attacks and injures the grape-vine. 



The Last Day 125 

his decision, that I dealt in blue-wool collars, such as deco- 
rate the neck of the French draught-horse. 

I had hurried to the topmost powers of Modestine, for I 
dearly desired to see the view upon the other side before 
the day had faded. But it was night when I reached the 5 
summit; the moon was riding high and clear; and only 
a few grey streaks of twilight lingered in the west. A 
yawning valley, gulfed in blackness, lay like a hole in 
created nature at my feet ; but the outline of the hills was 
sharp against the sky. There was Mount Aigoal, the 10 
stronghold of Castanet. And Castanet, not only as an 
active undertaking leader, deserves some mention among 
Camisards ; for there is a spray of rose among his laurel ; 
and he showed how, even in a public tragedy, love will 
have its way. In the high tide of war he married, in his 15 
mountain citadel, a young and pretty lass called Mariette. 
There were great rejoicings ; and the bridegroom released 
five-and-twenty prisoners in honour of the glad event. 
Seven months afterwards Mariette, the Princess of the 
Cevennes, as they called her in derision, fell into the hands 20 
of the authorities, where it was like to have gone hard 
with her. But Castanet was a man of execution, and 
loved his wife. He fell on Valleraugue, and got a lady 
there for a hostage ; and for the first and last time in that 
war there was an exchange of prisoners. Their daughter, 25 
pledge of some starry night upon Mount Aigoal, has left 
descendants to this day. 

Modestine and I — it was our last meal together — had 
a snack upon the top of St. Pierre, I on a heap of stones. 



126 Travels with a Donkey 

she standing by me in the moonHght and decorously eat- 
ing bread out of my hand. The poor brute would eat 
more heartily in this manner ; for she had a sort of affec- 
tion for me, which I was soon to betray. 
5 It was a long descent upon St. Jean du Gard, and we 
met no one but a carter, visible afar off by the ghnt of the 
moon on his extinguished lantern. 

Before ten o'clock we had got in and were at supper; 
fifteen miles and a stiff hill in little beyond six hours ! 

FAREWELL, MODESTINE 

lo On examination, on the morning of October 3d, Modes- 
tine was pronounced unfit for travel. She would need at 
least two days' repose according to the ostler; but I was 
now eager to reach Alais for my letters ; and, being in a 
civilized country of stage-coaches, I determined to sell 

15 my lady-friend and be off by the diligence that afternoon. 
Our yesterday's march, with the testimony of the driver 
who had pursued us up the long hill of St. Pierre, spread 
a favourable notion of my donkey's capabilities. Intend- 
ing purchasers were aware of an unrivalled opportunity. 

20 Before ten I had an offer of twenty-five francs ; and 
before noon, after a desperate engagement, I sold her, 
saddle and all, for five-and-thirty. The pecuniary gain 
is not obvious, but I had bought freedom into the 
bargain. 

25 St. Jean du Gard is a large place and largely Protestant. 
The maire, a Protestant, asked me to help him in a small 



Farewell, Modestine 127 

matter which is itself characteristic of the country. The 
young women of the Cevennes profit by the common 
religion and the difference of the language to go largely 
as governesses into England ; and here was one, a native 
of Mialet, struggling with English circulars from two differ- 5 
ent agencies in London. I gave what help I could ; and 
volunteered some advice, which struck me as being ex- 
cellent. 

One thing more I note. The phylloxera has ravaged 
the vineyards in this neighbourhood ; and in the early 10 
morning, under some chestnuts by the river, I found a 
party of men working with a cider-press. I could not at 
first make out what they were after, and asked one fellow 
to explain. 

" Making cider," he said. " Oui, c'est conime ga. 15 
Comme dans le nord! " 

There was a ring of sarcasm in his voice : the country 
was going to the devil. 

It was not until I was fairly seated by the driver, and 
rattling through a rocky valley with dwarf olives, that I 20 
became aware of my bereavement. I had lost Modestine. 
Up to that moment I had thought I hated her ; but now 

she was gone, 

« And, O, 
The difference to me ! " 25 

For twelve days we had been fast companions ; we had 
travelled upwards of a hundred and twenty miles, crossed 
several respectable ridges, and jogged along with our six legs 
by many a rocky and many a boggy by-road. After the first 



.128 Travels with a Donkey 

day, although sometimes I was hurt and distant in manner, 
I still kept my patience ; and as for her, poor soul ! she had 
come to regard me as a god. She loved to eat out of my 
hand. She was patient, elegant in form, the colour of an 
5 ideal mouse, and inimitably small. Her faults were those 
of her race and sex ; her virtues were her own. Farewell, 
and if for ever — 

Father Adam wept when he sold her to me ; after I 

had sold her in my turn, I was tempted to follow his 

lo example ; and being alone with a stage-driver and four or 

five agreeable young men, I did not hesitate to yield to 

my emotion. 



NOTES 

AN INLAND VOYAGE 

[The heavy figures are for the page, and the lighter ones for the line.] 

The canoe trip of which " An Inland Voyage " is an account was 
taken in the autumn of 1876 with Sir Walter Simpson, an enthusi- 
astic canoeist, and from their university days a warm personal 
friend of Stevenson. They had canoed before along the inlets of 
the Scottish coast, and while they were different in temperament, 
they were alike at least in their love for the sea. This journey can 
be traced from Antwerp up the Scheldt and the Rupel rivers to 
Boom ; thence by the Willebroek Canal to Brussels ; and thence 
by train, by river, by canal, and on foot to Pontoise, where the 
canoes, the Cigarette and the AretJnisa^ were left. What became 
of them may be learned from the letter to Sir Walter Simpson, 
given on page 3 of this book. From the trip Stevenson derived 
health and happiness, and for his account of the voyage here pub- 
lished he received twenty pounds. 

5 : 22. Tied my sheet. It is somewhat risky to sail a canoe at 
all. If, however, a canoeist does wish to sail he holds the rope so 
that he can most easily let out the sail when the gusts of wind 
come. To tie the rope would make a dangerous sport more dan- 
gerous. 

9 : 3. Miss Howe or Miss Harlowe. Characters in Samuel Rich- 
ardson's novel, Clarissa Harlo^cve. — 8. Anthony. Probably a ref- 
erence to Saint Anthony of Thebes, who sold his possessions, gave 
the proceeds to the poor, and then went into the desert, where he 
spent the most of his life as a hermit. He is called the father of 
monastic asceticism. — 11. Gymnosophist. A philosopher of a 



ii Inland Voyage 

sect said to have been founded by Alexander the Great. The mem- 
bers renounced all bodily pleasures. 

lo: i8. "C'est vite, mais c'est long." "It is rapid, but 
it is long," i.e. you are going fast but you have a long journey. 
— 21. Tillers. The levers by which the rudders are turned and 
the boats guided. — 23. Dingy. The smallest boat of a ship. 

12 : 27. Like a squire's avenue. An avenue through the estate 
of a country gentleman. 

14:17. Sterlings. Piles driven close together. — 23. Tre- 
panned. A trepan is a saw used by a surgeon in operating on a 
skull. The verb means to perform an operation on the skull. 

15 : 22. Allee Verte. Green Walk. A walk between double 
rows of lime trees leading from Brussels in the direction of Laeken. 

16 : 28. Huguenots. A name given to French Protestants be- 
fore the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. 

17:24. Entrefreres. Among brothers. — 26. " En Angleterre," 
etc. " In England you use sliding seats, do you not ? " — 29. Voyez- 
vous, nous sommes serieux. But in the evening "you see, we are 
serious." 

19: 12. Mammon. Paradise Lost, Book i, 678-683. 

21 : 3. To drive the coursers of the sun against Apollo. See 
the myth of Phaethon, who attempted to drive the chariot of the 
sun. 

22 : 12. Murray. One of the leading guide books so called from 
its editor and publisher. — 16. He is cast . . . into noisome dun- 
geons. See An Epilogue to an Inland Voyage in Across the 
Plains for an instance of Stevenson's arrest as a suspicious character. 

25 : 26. He who can sit squarest on a three-legged stool. He 
who devotes himself most closely to office work. Stevenson 
scorned the humdrum life of an office clerk. 

30 : 27. Hainaulters. Hainaut or Hainault is a district in south- 
western Belgium and northeastern France. 

32:12. Trousered. Coloured by tobacco stain. — 22. Amphora. 
A Greek word for a two-handled vessel used for wine, oil, etc. 



Notes 111 

34.5. Jove. See Hawthorne's story of Baucis and Philemon 
in The Wonder Book, " The Miraculous Pitcher." 

35 : 16. Rag-and-bone men. Ragpickers. 

36:6. Auberge. An inn. 

37: 13. Bread-berry. A food for invalids made by pouring 
boiling water on toasted bread and seasoning with sugar. — 
15. Swipes. English slang for poor weak beer. 

38 : 6. The Lucretian maxim. Stevenson evidently refers to 
such a saying as, " We find our own bread sweeter when we know 
that others have less than we." 

39 : 10. Landau. See the dictionary to note the distinguishing 
features of this carriage and why the word is spelled with a capi- 
tal letter. — 12. Moliere's farce. Moliere was a great French 
dramatist of the seventeenth century. The farce referred to is Les 
Pri'cieuses Ridicules. 

40 : 4. He adhered ... to the masculine gender. All his ad- 
jectives and pronouns were masculine without regard to the gender 
of the nouns with which they should have agreed. — 6. Fancy 
futures. Opinions concerning the rise and fall of prices in the 
market. — 9. Kepi. Cap. 

44 : 21. " Voila de Peau," etc. " Here is some water for washing 
yourselves." 

45 : 3« Waterloo. A town in Belgium famous for the final defeat 
of Napoleon. — 6. Austerlitz. A town in Austria famous for a 
great victory of Napoleon. 

46 : 8. Mormal, a sinister name to the ear. A word used to 
signify an old sore. 

47 : 20. Merlin under the oaks of Broceliande. Merlin, a magi- 
cian of King Arthur's time, is said to have been left spell-bound in 
a hollow oak in the woods of Broceliande. See Tennyson's " Mer- 
lin and Vivian " in The Idylls of the King. — 22. Banyan. The 
banyan tree sends out shoots from its branches that take root and be- 
come additional trunks. One tree may thus enlarge itself until it 
covers a large area, frequently as much as 100 yards in diameter. 



IV • Inland Voyage 

48: 18. Jeremiads. Tales of sorrow or complaint, so called 
from Jeremiah, the Hebrew prophet, and writer of Lamentations. 

50: 19. Bedlamite. A madman, an inmate of a lunatic asylum. 
The word Bedlam is a corruption of Bethlehem and was applied 
to the Hospital of St. Mary of Bethlehem in London, which was 
founded in 1247 and later became a hospital for the insane. 

51 : 14. Round. The officer and his attendants who make the 
round of the garrison to see that all is well. — 28. Presumptuous 
Hebrew prophets. See the story of Balaam and his ass, Ntwibers 
xxii. 21-35. 

52 : 4. Alma and Spicheren. Alma is a river in the Crimea, 
where the Allies won a victory over Russia in the Crimean War. 
Spicheren is a place in Lorraine, Germany, the scene of a German 
victory over the French in the Franco-Prussian War. 

55:13' Jerkin- A short coat. — ArchangeL A place in 
Russia where tar is obtained. — 15. Parterre. An ornamental 
arrangement of flower beds or plots. — 17. Loch Carron. An inlet 
on the west coast of Scotland well known to Stevenson. 

59 : 20. " Cependant." " However." 

60: 7. Mr. Moens. An English writer who had a short time 
before made a trip similar to Stevenson's in the steam yacht Ytene. 

61: 18. Colza. A variety of cabbage cultivated for the seeds, 
which yield a valuable oil. 

62 : 14. Pan. Greek god of shepherds, who is said to have used 
a reed for his flute. — 21. Centaur. A Greek mythological being, 
half man, half horse. 

64: 17. Burns. See Burns's poem. To a Mountain Daisy. — 
28. "Come away, Death." See Shakespeare's Twelfth Nighty 
ii. 4. 

69 : 9. "0 France, mes amours." " O France, my loves." — 
16. "Lesmalheursde la France." "The misfortunes of France." 
— 23. Alsace and Lorraine. Districts in Germany that belonged 
to France until after the Franco-Prussian War of 1 870-1 871. 

70 : 7. Farmer George. George HI ; " so called because he 



Notes V 

was like a farmer in dress, manners, and tastes. Also called ' The 
Farmer King.' " Brewer, The Reader's Handbook. — ,23. Caudine 
Forks. Two narrow passes in Italy where the Romans were de- 
feated in 321 B.C. 

71 : 3. Fletcher of Saltoun. Andrew Fletcher, a Scotch patriot 
who made himself famous by saying : " If a man were permitted to 
make all the ballads, he need not care who should make the laws 
of a nation." 

72:12. Othello. Othello, in Shakespeare's play, won the heart 
of Desdemona by telling the story of his adventures. 

76 : 18. " Tristes tetes de Danois ! " " Sad Danish heads !" — 
19. Gaston Lafenestre. A French painter of Stevenson's ac- 
quaintance. — 24. Fontainebleau. A town thirty-five miles from 
Paris and a forest said to be the most beautiful in France. This 
region was the haunt of artists and was well known to Stevenson. 
See Stevenson's essay, Fontainebleau. 

77 '' 25. Jacques. Another French painter of Stevenson's time. 

78 : 8. Barbizon. A village on the outskirts of the forest of Fon- 
tainebleau especially frequented by Stevenson and his artist friends. 

79 : 3. Proletarian. A term from Roman antiquity which 
meant the lowest class of citizens. 

80 : 5. Pro indiviso. All together. 

81 : 3. "Eh bien, quoi, c'est magnifique, ga !" " Well, now, it 
is magnificent indeed." — 28. Poe's horrid story. The Pit and the 
Pendulu?n. — 29. Tristram Shandy. A novel of the eighteenth 
century, by Laurence Sterne. 

82:17. Nanty Ewart. See Scott's Redgauntlet, Chap. xv. — 
25. Communist, Communard. A communist believes that all 
means of production should be held in common by all the people. 
A communard believes in government by communes independent 
of one another. The two words are sometimes used synonymously. 

87 : 20. Siphon. A conduit that takes the water of the river 
under the canal. — 28. Demoniacal possession. See Luke iv. 
33-36. 



vi Inland Voyage 

88:5. La Fdre. One of the places besieged by the Prussians 
in the Franco-Prussian War. — Niirnberg figures. Statuettes, 
etc., made at Niirnberg (or Nuremburg) in Bavaria. — 12. "C'est 
bon, n'est-ce pas ? " " It is good, is it not ? " 

92 : 5. Timon. A Greek of the time of the Peloponnesian War 
and the cynical hero of Shakespeare's Timon of Athens. He was 
called "The Misanthrope" from his attitude of disgust toward peo- 
ple in general. 

93 : 2. " Bazin, aubergiste, loge a pied." "Innkeeper, lodging 
for pedestrians. At the sign of the Maltese cross." — 16. Zola's 
description of the marriage party. See Zola's L'Asso??inioirf 
Chap. iii. 

97 : 15. H6tel de Ville. A town-hall. 

99: 22. Miserere. The chant in the Roman Catholic service be- 
ginning, " Miserere mei r)omine." Pity me. Lord. 

101:17. Jubilate Deo. The chant beginning " Jubilate Deo." 
Shout for joy unto the Lord. — 29. A department. One of the 
sections into which France is divided for government. 

103 : 26. Deo Gratias and Four Sons of Aymon. The names of 
canal-boats seen a day or two before on the canal. 

106 : 23. Gargoyled. Decorated with gargoyles, water-spouts 
carved to represent the heads of strange and hideous beasts, — 
27. Louis XII. King of France, 1498-15 1 5. 

108:4. Via Dolorosa. The Dolorous Way, the street along 
which Jesus Christ passed to his crucifixion. 

112 : 6. Feuilletons. A portion of a French newspaper devoted 
to light literature, or, as here, articles in this part of the paper. 

113 : 16. Bradshaw's Guide. The English railway guide, named 
from its originator. — 20. Walt Whitman. American poet, 
1819-1892. 

115: 17. Nirvana. In the Buddhist system of religion Nirvana 
is the final saving of the soul from transmigration, and hence the 
happy freedom from all the evils of worldly existence. 

117 : 28. Great Assizes. The assizes in England are sessions of 



Notes 



Vll 



the county or circuit court, hence the Great Assizes means the last 
judgement. 

119:28. Ex voto. As a votive offering. 

122:2. Zelatrice. A zealous person. The term is often used 
for a nun who is put in charge of the younger women in a con- 
vent. — 6. Dizaine. Ten prayers. — 18. The exciseman. Burns. 
— 28. Euclid. The Greek geometrician who wrote the first trea- 
tise on geometry. The term, Euclid, is used in general for geome- 
try. 

125: I. Marionettes. Puppets moved by strings as in a Punch 
and Judy show. 

127 : 29. " 'Tis better to have loved and lost. 
Than never to have loved at all." 

— Tennyson, In Memoriam^ xxvii. 

128 : 2. Endymion. A mythological youth with whom Diana fell 
in love. — 3. Audrey. A country maiden in Shakespeare's As 
You Like It. — 6. Snood. A ribbon which binds the hair of a 
young unmarried Scotch woman. — ii. Chateau Landon. A vil- 
lage near Fontainebleau. — 24. Seine et Marne. The department 
in which is the forest of Fontainebleau. 

130 : 10. Mesdames et Messieurs, etc. " Ladies and gentlemen, 
Mademoiselle Ferrario and Monsieur de Vauversin will have the 
honor of singing this evening the following selections. Mademoi- 
selle Ferrario will sing ' Mignon,' ' Swift Birds,' * France,' ' French- 
men sleep there,' 'The Blue Castle,' 'Where are you going?' 
Monsieur de Vauversin will sing * Madame Fontaine and Monsieur 
Robinet,' * The Divers on Horseback,' ' The Dissatisfied Husband,' 
' Keep silent, my boy,' * My Queer Neighbour,' ' Happy as it is,' 
* How one is deceived.' " 

133 : 6. Tenez, messieurs, etc. Now, gentlemen, I will tell 
you what it is. — 23. Pyramus and Thisbe. For a humorous 
performance of the old story of Pyramus and Thisbe, see Midsummer 
Ni^Jifs Dream. 



viii Inland Voyage 

134:1. The unities. Aristotle laid down the laws long observed 
by writers of drama that every play should observe unity of time, 
i.e. keep the time of the play within the limits of one day ; unity 
of place, i.e. that there should be no change of place ; and unity 
of action, i.e. that the action or story should be constantly followed. 

135 : 8. Theophile Gautier. A French poet and critic of the 
nineteenth century. 



NOTES 

TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY 

[The heavy figures are for the page, and the lighter ones for the line.] 

Robert Louis Stevenson and Sir Walter Simpson, after the re- 
turn from their "inland voyage," were so enthusiastic that they 
straightway planned another trip, a tramping trip among the moun- 
tains. Sir Walter, however, was not a good walker, and after some 
delays finally gave up the plan ; but Stevenson, to whose romantic 
nature the thought of walking through an unfamiliar country and 
spending the night by the roadside in his sleeping-bag appealed 
strongly, purchased a donkey and set out from Monastier on the 23d 
of September, 1878. His account of the twelve days' trip, written 
from the journal that he kept from day to day, is full of romantic 
and human interest. As before, he gained health and experience, 
on the whole happy, and received twenty pounds for his story. 

3:1. Le Monastier. For a longer account of this mountain village 
see Stevenson's A Mountain Town in France. — 6. Legitimists, 
etc. The Legitimists favoured the old line of Bourbon kings ; the 
Orleanists, the Prince of Orleans ; the Imperialists, the son of Louis 
Napoleon ; and the Republicans, the republic established after the 
Franco-Prussian War of 1870. — 12. Poland. Since its partition, 
Poland has been the seat of fierce political dissensions. 

5:21. Respirator. An instrument for breathing through, used 
by persons with weak lungs or by those employed where there is 
dust, smoke, or gas. 

6 : 25. Sixty-five francs. A franc is equal to about twenty cents. 
— 27. Modestine. A fanciful name suggesting small size and 
modest ways. 

8:12. Christian. The traveller in Bunyan's Pilgrim^ s Prog7'ess. 
i 



ii Travels with a Donkey 



11:26. "Et vous marchez commega!" "And you go like 

that ! " 

12:8. Deus ex machina. " A god from the machine," i.e. from 
a theatrical contrivance by which a deity is made to appear on the 
scene to help or protect his favourites. — 27. A countryman of 
the Sabbath. The Sabbath is observed in Scotland v/ith unusual 
strictness. 

13 : 20. Homer's Cyclops. A rude and lawless people living on 
the tops of lofty hills and in hollow caves. See The Odyssey^ 
Book ix. 

15 : 8. Hypothec. A Scottish legal term for a landlord's right 
over the property of his tenant in security for debt. Here then it 
means the whole property. 

16 : 8. Acolytes.' Those who have been ordained to the highest 
of the four minor orders in the Roman Catholic church. Assistant 
clergymen. 

22 : 22. Dur comme un ine. Tough as a donkey. 

26 : 10. Napoleon Buonaparte of wolves. A famous wolf that 
ranged certain districts of France for some years and was the sub- 
ject of wildly extravagant tales. When it was killed in 1787, it 
was found to be of ordinary size. — 21. Alexander Pope. A poet 
of the eighteenth century, 1 688-1 744. — The little corporal. A 
nickname for Napoleon. — 23. M. Elie Berthet. Author of Beie 
du Gevaudan (Beast of Gevaudan), 1815-1891. 

27 : 9. Caryatides. Draped female figures used in ornate build- 
ings in place of plain pillars, so called from Caryae, a village in 
Greece where there was a temple of Diana. — 25. " D'OU 'st que 
VOUS venez ? " " Where do you come from ? " 

30:1. Herbert Spencer. An EngHsh philosopher and writer, 
1820-1903. Stevenson implies that a student of philosophy should 
be above a belief in ghosts and fairies. 

32 : 16. "A little farther," etc. See Milton's Sa?nson Agonistes, 
1. I. 

33 : 12. "C'est que, voyez-vous, il fait noir." "But then, you 



Notes iii 

see, it is dark." — i6. "Mais — c'est — de la peine." "But it 
is troublesome." — 20. " Ce n'est pas 9a." "That isn't it." — 
21. "Mais je ne sortirai pas de la porte." "But I am not going 
to cross the door." 

34 : 1. " C'est vrai, 9a." " That is true." — 2. " Oui, c'est vrai. 
Et d'OU venez-vous?" "Yes, that is true, and whence have you 
come ? " — 21. " C'est que, c'est que — il fait noir." " But then, 
but then, it is dark." 

35 : 10, Filia barbara pater barbarior. The daughter barbar- 
ous, the father more barbarous. 

37 : 6. Neat brandy. Brandy pure, unadulterated; specifically, 
not mixed with water, undiluted. 

38 : 24. Pastors of the Desert. A history of the Protestant per- 
secution in France, especially interesting to one about to go into 
the country of the Camisards. 

39 : 3. Ulysses, left on Ithaca. See The Odyssey, Book xiii, for 
the return of Ulysses to his home in Ithaca while he was asleep, 
and for his surprise on waking. 

40 : 23. Lady of all Graces. The Virgin Mary. 

41 : 9. Balquidder and Dunrossness. Remote Protestant par- 
ishes in Scotland and the Shetland Islands. 

43 : 9. ^sop. The famous Greek writer of fables. Look up the 
fable of the man who carried his donkey. 

47:7. Wordsworth. An English poet, 1 770-1850. See his 
sonnet called, Proud were ye mountains, when in time of old, 
— 13. Trappist. The Trappists are a monastic body, a branch of the 
Cistercian order, so called from the village of Saligny-la-Trappe in 
France, where the abbey of La Trappe was founded in 1140. The 
rules of the order are very severe as will be seen from Stevenson's 
account. There are two branches of the order in the United States; 
the Abbey of Gethsemane in Pennsylvania, and one at Melleray, 
Iowa. — 13. Our Lady of the Snows. A monastery so named 
from its position among the hills in the region of snow. 

48:1. Sheets of characters. Pictures sold in sheets. See "A 



iv Travels with a Donkey- 

Penny Plain and Two-pence Coloured " in Stevenson's Memories and 
Portraits. 

50 : 10. Dr. Pusey. An English clergyman who advocated the 
return to doctrines and forms of worship like those of the Roman 
Catholic church. Some of his associates joined the church of 
Rome, but Dr. Pusey remained in the English church. 

51 : 15. Father Hospitaller. The monk appointed to receive 
strangers. 

53 : 5. MM. les retraitants. Persons who have retired to the 
monastery for a short time for rest and meditation, but who have 
not joijied the order. Stevenson refers to them later as boarders. 
— 7. The Imitation. 77ie Imitation of Christ, a religious book by 
Thomas a Kempis, a German abbot (1380-1471). — 8. Elizabeth 
Seton. An American protestant who joined the church of Rome 
in 1805 and founded the Sisters of Charity. — 12. Cotton Mather. 
A Puritan theologian of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries 
who was a leader of religious thought in Massachusetts. — 21. "Le 
temps libre," etc. "Their free time is to be used for inward 
thought, for confession, and for forming good resolutions. " 

54:19. Basil, Hilarion, Raphael, Pacifique. Famous monks of 
different times and countries. — 21. Veuillot and Chateaubriand. 
French authors of comparatively recent time. — 22. Molidre. The 
great French dramatist of the seventeenth century. Stevenson 
expresses his surprise that dramas, poetry, and modern French 
literature should be found here where attention was given so 
exclusively to things religious. 

57 : 8. Mortification. Subduing the passions and appetites by 
abstinence and severities inflicted on the body. — 14. Cistercian. 
The Cistercian monks were an old order bound together by severe 
rules and intense devotion to religion. 

58 : 3. Chapter-room. The room where the monks of the order 
(the chapter) meet for business. — 3. The refectory. The dining- 
hall. — 4. Office. A prescribed service of the church. 

59: II. Compline. The religious exercise which closes the ser- 



Notes V 

vices of the day. — ii. Salve Regina. A hymn to the Virgin 
Mary in the Roman Catholic breviary. 
60 : II. " Que t'as de belles fiUes." French song. 

" What beautiful daughters you have, 
Girofle, Girofla, 
What beautiful daughters you have, 
Love will number them." 

62 : 23. Gambetta. A French statesman prominent after the 
Franco-Prussian War. — 27. ** Comment, monsieur ? " " How is 
that, sir ? How is that ? " 

63 : 21. " Et vous pr^tendez mourir," etc. "And you expect to 
die in that sort of belief." 

64 : 8. Gaetulian Lion. Gaetulia was a district in ancient times 
in northwestern Africa, now included in Morocco. 

65: 19. "C'est mon conseil comme," etc. "That is my advice 
as a former soldier and this gentleman's as a priest." — 22. "Oui, 
comme ancien," etc. "Yes, as an old soldier and a priest." 

66:7. "A f addling hedonist." Hedonists were philosophers 
who exalted the gratification of the senses, or put pleasure first. 

67:8. "La parole est a vous." This phrase means, "It is 
your turn to speak." But probably what Stevenson intended to 
say was mot — "it is your word." 

69:8. "Hd, bourgeois; il est cinq heures." "Hey, citizen, it 
is five o'clock." 

73:26. Montaigne. A French essayist, 1 533-1 592. 

74 : 3. Bastille. The famous prison in Paris that fell at the 
time of the French Revolution. 

79 : 14. The Lozdre. A mountain in the Cevennes in a district 
also called Lozere. 

80 : 3. Montpellier and Cette. Towns in France on the shore 
of the Mediterranean. — 17. Grand Monarch. Louis XIV. — • 
20. The Camisards. The Protestants of the Cevennes who rose 
in 1702 in an insurrection against the persecutions of Louis 



VI Travels with a Donkey 

XIV. The insurrection lasted three years and ended with or 
soon after the death of their leader, Roland Laporte, mentioned 
here as Roland. 

8i : 9. Jersey. An island in the English Channel. 

82 : 10. Florentin. A band of Roman Catholics, so called from 
St. Florent, a small town where they organized. 

84:17. Carlisle. An English town near the Scotch border. — 
18. Dumfries. A Scotch town near the English border, made 
famous as the residence and burial place of Robert Burns. 

86:9. Patet dea. Appears as a goddess. — 21. Archbishop 
Sharpe. James Sharpe, Archbishop of St. Andrews, was killed in 
1679 by the Covenanters, a company of Scotch who fought fiercely 
to maintain their Presbyterian form of worship when England tried 
to force the forms of the English church upon them. See Scott's 
Old Mortality^ for a vivid picture of the time. It is not strange 
that this young Scotchman should draw comparisons between the 
Covenanters and the Camisards. 

87 : 2. Marshal Villars. The French general who put down the 
Camisard insurrection. — 18. Galleys. Ancient seagoing vessels 
propelled by oars. The labor of rowing was often performed by 
slaves or prisoners of war. In France criminals were commonly 
condemned to this service. 

89 : 22. Scavenger's Daughter. Corruption of Skevington's 
daughter. "An instrument of torture, invented by Sir Wm. Skev- 
ingtoix, which so compressed the body as to force the blood to 
flow from the nostrils and sometimes from the hands and feet." 
Am. Cyc. — 29. Baal. Chief god of the Canaanites. See i Kings 
xviii. 17-40. 

92 : 6. Killiecrankie. A pass in the Grampian mountains of 
Scotland, where Claverhouse, the persecutor of the Scotch Cove- 
nanters, fell in 1689. 

94 : 29. Joani and Salomon. Camisard leaders. 

95 : II. Antony Watteau. A French painter of the early eight- 
eenth century. 



Notes vii 

99 : 3. " Connaissez-vous le Seigneur ? " " Do you know the 
Lord?" — 22. Moravians. A small but thoroughly devoted sect 
that have made themselves well known both in Europe and America 
by their simplicity of life and remarkable missionary zeal. They 
are best known in this country in Pennsylvania. 

100 : 26. Christian and Faithful. Two of the characters in Bun- 
yan's Pilgrim'' s Progress. 

102 : 21. Those who took to the hills, etc. This gloomy trait 
of character so apparent in the Scotch Covenanters is most clearly 
illustrated in the character of Balfour of Burley, in Scott's Old 
Mortality. 

104 : 8. Mauchline, etc. In the country districts of Scotland, 
especrally among the unlettered, they still remember the Cove- 
nanters, but in towns the people have largely forgotten these con- 
tests for a free religion. Stevenson, therefore, takes special notice 
of a different condition existing in Southern France. 

108: 14. A la belle 6toile. Literally, under the beautiful star; 
in the open air. 

113:13. Naaman. For the beautiful story of Naaman, see 2 
Kings Vi 

114:18. Bruce and Wallace. The greatest mihtary heroes of 
Scotland. 

115:7. " Cependant, coucher dehors ! " " However, to sleep out 
of doors ! " 

116:4. Sir Cloudesley Shovel. A British admiral on the 
Mediterranean with a fleet at the time of the Camisard insurrection. 

118:7. Pippa. In the poem Pippa Passes, by Robert Browning. 

127 : 15. "Oui, c'est comme 9a. Comme dans le nord ! " "Yes, 
that is the way it is. Just as in the North." — 24. 

" And, 0, 
The difference to me ! " 

See Wordsworth's poem beginning, " She dwelt among the untrod- 
den ways." 



TEACHERS' OUTLINES 
FOR STUDIES IN ENGLISH 

Based on the Requirements for Admission to College 

By GILBERT SYKES BLAKELY, A.M., Instructor in 
English in the Morris High School, New York City. 

^0.50 



THIS little book is intended to present to teachers 
plans for the study of the English texts required for 
admission to college. These Outlines are full of 
inspiration and suggestion, and wUl be welcomed by every 
live teacher who hitherto, in order to avoid ruts, has been 
obliged to compare notes with other teachers, visit classes, 
and note methods. The volume aims not at a discussion of 
the principles of teaching, but at an application of certain 
principles to the teaching of some of the books most 
generally read in schools. 

^ The references by page and line to the book under 
discussion are to the texts of the Gateway Series; but the 
Outlines can be used with any series of English classics. 
^ Certain brief plans of study are developed for the 
general teaching of the novel, narrative poetry, lyric 
poetry, the drama, and the essay. The suggestions are 
those of a practical teacher, and follow a definite scheme 
in each work to be studied. There are discussions of 
methods, topics for compositions, and questions for review. 
The lists of questions are by no means exhaustive, but 
those that are given are suggestive and typical. 
^ The appendix contains twenty examinations in English, 
for admission to college, recently set by different colleges 
in both the East and the West. 



AMERIQAN BOOK COMPANY 

<S.87) 



A HISTORY OF ENGLISH 
LITERATURE 

By REUBEN POST HALLECK, M.A. (Yale), 
Louisville Male High School. Price, $1.25 



HALLECK'S HISTORY OF ENGLISH LIT- 
ERATURE traces the development o{ that litera- 
ture from the earliest times to the present in a 
concise, interesting, and stimulating manner. Although the 
subject is presented so clearly that it can be readily com- 
prehended by high school pupils, the treatment is sufficiently 
philosophic and suggestive for any student beginning the 
study. 

^ The book is a history of literature, and not a mere col- 
lection of biographical sketches. Only enough of the facts 
of an author's Hfe are given to make students interested in 
him as a personality, and to show how his environment 
affected his work. Each author's productions, their rela- 
tions to the age, and the reasons why they hold a position 
in literature, receive adequate treatment. 
^ One of the most striking features of the work consists in 
the way in which literary movements are clearly outlined at 
the beginning of each chapter. Special attention is given to 
the essential qualities which differentiate one period from 
another, and to the animating spirit of each age. The author 
shows that each period has contributed something definite 
to the literature of England. 

^ At the end of each chapter a carefully prepared list of 
books is given to direct the student in studying the original 
works of the authors treated. He is told not only what to 
read, but also where to find it at the least cost. The book 
contains a special literary map oi" England in colors. 



AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY 

(S. 90) 



INTRODUCTION TO 
AMERICAN LITERATURE 

By BRANDER MATTHEWS, A.M., LL.B., Profes- 
sor of Literature, Columbia University. Price, ^i.oo 



EX-PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT, in a most ap- 
preciative review in The Bookmariy says : ** The 
book is a piece of work as good of its kind as any 
American scholar has ever had in his hands. It is just 
the kind of book that should be given to a beginner, be- 
cause it will give him a clear idea of what to read, and of 
the relative importance of the authors he is to read ; yet it 
is much more than merely a book for beginners. Any 
student of the subject who wishes to do good work here- 
after must not only read Mr. Matthews' book, but must 
largely adopt Mr. Matthews' way of looking at things, 
for these simply written, unpretentious chapters are worth 
many times as much as the ponderous tomes which con- 
tain what usually passes for criticism ; and the principles 
upon which Mr. Matthews insists with such quiet force 
and good taste are those which must be adopted, not 
only by every student of American writings, but by every 
American writer, if he is going to do what is really worth 
doing. ... In short, Mr. Matthews has produced 
an admirable book, both in manner and matter, and has 
made a distinct addition to the very literature of which he 
writes." 

^ The book is amply provided with pedagogical features. 
Each chapter includes questions for review, bibliograph- 
ical notes, facsimiles of manuscripts, and portraits, while 
at the end of the volume is a brief chronology of American 
literature. 



AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY 

(S. 90 



COMPOSITION-RHETORIC 

By STRATTON D. BROOKS, Superintendent of 
Schools, Boston, Mass., and MARIETTA HUB- 
BARD, formerly English Department, High School, 
La Salle, 111. Price, ^i.oo 



THE fundamental aim of this volume is to enable pupils 
to express their thoughts freely, clearly, and forcibly. 
At the same time it is designed to cultivate literary 
appreciation, and to develop some knowledge of rhetorical 
theory. The work follows closely the requirements of the 
College Entrance Examination Board, and o{ the New 
York State Education Department. 

^y In Part One are given the elements of description, narra- 
tion, exposition, and argument; also special chapters on let- 
ter-writing and poetry. A more complete and comprehensive 
treatment of the four forms of discourse already discussed is 
furnished in Part Two. In each partis presented a series of 
themes covering these subjects, the purpose being to give the 
pupil inspiration, and that confidence in himself which comes 
from the frequent repetition of an act. A single new princi- 
ple is' introduced into each theme, and this is developed in 
the text, and illustrated by carefully selected examples. 
^ The pupils are taught how to correct their own errors, 
and also how to get the main thought in preparing their 
lessons. Careful coordination with the study of literature 
and Yvith other school studies is made throughout the book. 
^ The modern character of the illustrative extracts can not 
fail to interest every boy and girl. Concise summaries are 
given followingthetreatmentofthevariousforms of discourse, 
and toward the end of the book there is a very comprehensive 
and compact summary of grammatical principles. More than 
usual attention is devoted to the treatment of argument. 



AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY 

(S. 88) 



NINETEENTH CENTURY 
ENGLISH PROSE 

Critical Essays 

Edited with Introductions and Notes by THOMAS H. 
DICKINSON, Ph.D., and FREDERICK W. ROE, 

A.M., Assistant Professors of English, University of 
Wisconsin. Price, ^i.oo. 



THIS book for college classes presents a series of ten 
selected essays, which are intended to. trace the 
development of English criticism in the nineteenth 
century. The essays cover a definite period, and exhibit 
the individuality of each author's method of criticism. In 
each case they are those most typical of the author's crit- 
ical principles, and at the same time representative of the 
critical tendencies of his age. The subject-matter provides 
interesting material for intensive study and class room dis- 
cussion, and each essay is an example of excellent, though 
varying, style. 

^ They represent not only the authors who write, but 
the authors who are treated. The essays provide the 
best things that have been said by England's critics on Swift, 
on Scott, on Macaulay, and on Emerson. 

^ The introductions and notes provide the necessary bio- 
graphical matter, suggestive points for the use of the teacher 
in stimulating discussion of the form or content of the essays, 
and such aids as will eliminate those matters of detail that 
might prove stumbling blocks to the student. Though the 
essays are in chronological order, they may be treated at 
random according to the purposes of the teacher. 



AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY 

(S.8o) 



ESSENTIALS IN HISTORY 



ESSENTIALS IN ANCIENT HISTORY . ^1.50 

From the earliest records to Charlemagne. By 
ARTHUR MAYER WOLFSON, Ph.D., First 
Assistant in History, DeWitt Clinton High School, 
New York 

ESSENTIALS IN MEDIEVAL AND MODERN 
HISTORY ;^i.5o 

From Charlemagne to the present day. By SAMUEL 
BANNISTER HARDING, Ph.D , Professor of 
European History, Indiana University 

ESSENTIALS IN ENGLISH HISTORY . ^1.50 

From the earliest records to the present day. By 
ALBERT PERRY WALKER, A.M., Master in 
History, English High School, Boston 

ESSENTIALS IN AMERICAN HISTORY . ^1.50 

From the discovery to the present day. By ALBERT 
BUSHNELL HART, LL.D., Professor of History, 
Harvard University 

THESE volumes correspond to the four subdivisions 
required by the College Entrance Examination 
Board, and by the New York State Education De- 
partment. Each volume is designed for one year's vv^ork. 
Each of the writers is a trained historical scholar, familiar 
with the conditions and needs of secondary schools. 
^ The effort has been to deal only with the things which 
are typical and characteristic; to avoid names and details 
which have small significance, in order to deal more justly 
with the forces which have really directed and governed 
mankind. Especial attention is paid to social history. 
^ The books are readable and teachable, and furnish brief 
but useful sets of bibliographies and suggestive questions. 
No pains have been spared by maps and pictures to furnish 
a significant and thorough body of illustration. 



AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY 

(S. 130) 



THE MASTERY OF BOOKS 

By HARRY LYMAN KOOPMAN, A.M., Librarian 
of Brown University. Price, 90 cents 



IN this book Mr. Koopman, whose experience and 
reputation as a Hbrarian give him unusual qualifications 
as an adviser, presents to the student at the outset the 
advantages of reading, and the great field of hterature 
open to the reader's choice. He takes counsel with the 
student as to his purpose, capacities, and opportunities in 
reading, and aims to assist him in following such methods 
and in turning to such classes of books as will further the 
attainment of his object. 

^ Pains are taken to provide the young student from the 
beginning with a knowledge, often lacking in older readers, 
of the simplest literary tools — reference books and cata- 
logues. An entire chapter is given to the discussion of 
the nature and value of that form of printed matter which 
forms the chief reading of the modern world — periodical 
literature. Methods of note- taking and of mnemonics 
are fully described ; and a highly suggestive and valuable 
chapter is devoted to language study. 

^ One of the most valuable chapters in the volume to 
most readers is that concerning courses of reading. In 
accordance with the author's new plan for the guidance 
of readers, a classified list of about fifteen hundred books 
is given, comprising the most valuable works in reference 
books, periodicals, philosophy, rehgion, mythology and 
folk-lore, biography, history, travels, sociology, natural 
sciences, art, poetry, fiction, Greek, Latin, and modern 
literatures. The latest and best editions are specified, and 
the relative value of the several works mentioned is indi- 
cated in notes. 



AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY 

(S. 106) 



INTRODUCTORY COURSE 
IN EXPOSITION 

By FRANCES M. PERRY, Associate Professor of 
Rhetoric and Composition, Wellesley College. 

^i.oo 



EXPOSITION is generally admitted to be the most 
commonly used form of discourse, and its successful 
practice develops keen observation, deliberation, 
sound critical judgment, and clear and concise expression. 
Unfortunately, however, expository courses often fail to 
justify the prevailing estimate of the value of exposition, 
because the subject has been presented in an unsystem- 
atized manner w^ithout variety or movement. 
^ The aim of this book is to provide a systematized 
course in the theory and practice of expository writing. 
The student will acquire from its study a clear under- 
standing of exposition — its nature ; its two processes, 
definition and analysis ; its three functions impersonal 
presentation or transcript, interpretation, and interpretative 
presentation ; and the special application of exposition in 
literary criticism. He will also gain, through the practice 
required by the course, facility in writing in a clear and 
attractive way the various types of exposition. The 
volume includes an interesting section on literary criticism. 
^ The method used is direct exposition, amply reinforced 
by examples and exercises. The illustrative matter is 
taken from many and varied sources, but much of it is 
necessarily modern. The book meets the needs of 
students in the final years of secondary schools, or the 
first years of college. 



AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY 

(S.93) 



DESCRIPTIVE 

CATALOGUE OF HIGH 

SCHOOL AND COLLEGE 

TEXTBOOKS 

Published Complete and in Sections 



WE issue a Catalogue of High School and College 
Textbooks, which we have tried to make as valua- 
ble and as useful to teachers as possible. In this 
catalogue are set forth briefly and clearly the scope and 
leading characteristics of each of our best textbooks. In 
most cases there are also given testimonials from well- 
known teachers, which have been selected quite as much 
for their descriptive qualities as for their value as com- 
mendations. 

^ For the convenience of teachers this Catalogue is also 
published in separate sections treating of the various branches 
of study. These pamphlets are entitled: English, Mathe- 
matics, History and Political Science, Science, Modern 
Languages, Ancient Languages, and Philosophy and 
Education, 

^ Teachers seeking the newest and best books for their 
classes are invited to send for our Complete High School 
and College Catalogue, or for such sections as may be of 
greatest interest. 

^ Copies of our price lists, or of special circulars, in which 
these books are described at greater length than the space 
limitations of the catalogue permit, will be mailed to any 
address on request. Address all correspondence to the 
nearest office of the company. 



AMERICAN BOOK COMPANY 

(S.312) 



i 



Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: May 2009 

PreservationTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN COLLECTIONS PRESERVATION 

111 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township, PA 16066 
(724) 779-2111 



One copy del. to Oat. Div. 



